


Exceeds Eggspectations

by Elle Gray (Elle_Gray)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Ancient magic, Angst, Anthropomorphism - Freeform, Banter, Bisexual Draco Malfoy, Bisexual Harry Potter, Bisexual Lisa Turpin, Bisexual Michael Corner, Bisexual Parvati Patil, Blaise being homophobic and everyone hating on him for it, Blaise-bashing, Blowjobs, Consent, Denial of Feelings, Drunken Shenanigans, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, FaceFucking, Facials, Food, Friends With Benefits, Friendship, Frottage, Funny, Gay Mentor Charlie Weasley, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Harry Potter POV, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Hogwarts: A History, Humour, Intergluteal Sex, Kissing, Lesbian Millicent Bulstrode, M/M, Magical Theory, Masturbation, Misunderstandings, Pining, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Realisation of feelings, Revenge, Sarcastic Harry Potter, School Assignments, Secret Relationship, Slut-Shaming, Snarky Draco Malfoy, Spin the Bottle, Switching, accidental wizarding ceremonies, bed sharing, caring for a smol helpless thing, coming all over the place, fake babies, first person POV, handjobs, healthy discussion, honestly bad parenting, idiots to lovers, magical objects, mention of depression, mention of sex diseases, omg they were roommates, smol helpless things being dropped down the stairs and other catastrophies, supportive friends, wanking, working together, yelling about feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-07-10 17:29:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 61,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19909507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elle_Gray/pseuds/Elle%20Gray
Summary: Eighth year. Winter. Christmas has been and gone. Harry’s just been dumped and so has Malfoy. There’s a stupid fake baby assignment to be done, and what’s the harm in doing it together, really, when life is this shit already?This is not slow burn, this is a roman candle pointed at a pile of dry twigs that represent your heart.





	1. The Arrival

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tackytiger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tackytiger/gifts).



> Written for the Trope "8th Year" for the 2019 H/D Tropes Exchange Fest
> 
> Thanks to the very sexy pile of betas, cheerleaders, experts and friends who made this a thing.

**_Hospital Wing_ **

**_Evening_ **

**_Day 0_ **

  
  


Pomfrey's off somewhere now, maybe making a note in her ledger about  _ what's happened this time, Mr Potter? _ She probably has a tally. Gryffindor is probably winning for most avoidable injuries. Hufflepuff would be things like "hugged too hard, slightly winded", or "giggled to the point of chronic hiccups". It's probably the safest house and I should've asked for that, since the Sorting Hat was being generous that day. Or Ravenclaw, they're probably all papercuts and stress pimples. Slytherins are likely stab wounds to the back. Maybe a sideline of nefarious venereal diseases.

I compile a list of horrific things the Slytherins might be infected with and of course that’s when Malfoy walks in, seething, the tension rising with every clipped step he takes across the infirmary's scrubbed stone floor. He stares at me for a second in the only occupied bed, laid back with a poultice balanced, wet, on my head. It's suspicion, then what looks like  _ pity _ on his face, but it's been a night already and nothing he does can touch me now.

Pomfrey comes out to see what's wrong, and he shoots me another look, wary this time. 'Things I'd rather remained private,' he says, and he blushes.

She sighs and beckons him into her office. Maybe I was right. Maybe Malfoy’s Malediction is real and his crotch is truly encrusted with weeping purple sores. They're too quiet though, and I can't hear anything at all. I spend ten minutes trying to listen in while I continue to wait for whatever she's put on my head to do its thing. It was a tiny cut but apparently “ _the real danger with exploding snowglobes is the unsanitary water inside them”_ and she's worried about infection. Though really, if there's a cut on my head and I'm not infected with fucking Voldemort, it's a win.

Malfoy slinks out of her office a while later, looking shifty, even in my periphery. Pomfrey wanders off to rummage in a cabinet out of my line of sight but I can hear her clattering, glass hitting glass. Malfoy comes closer and I wonder if her proximity is enough to stop him from being a nasty little prick. I should’ve kept my wand closer to me.

'Potter,' he says, and sits on the bed next to mine, like we don't hate each other all of a sudden. 

'Malfoy,' I reply, making sure to keep the absolute disdain out of my voice lest he hex me while I'm trying to stay still enough that the goop on my head doesn't slide into my eyes. 'Bad day?' 

'At least as bad as yours if the rumours are true.' The smirk is audible in his voice but it doesn’t feel malicious, instead, almost self-deprecating.

I barely manage to keep my head still, fighting the urge to turn and look at his expression. 'What rumours?' I ask.

He sighs. 'The one where my ex-friend has run off with your ex-girlfriend.'

I was under the impression she’d run off alone after I exploded a decorative snowglobe all over her homework, but hell, when is my life ever simple or painless or not completely fucking mental? 'Since when?' I ask, wondering if it’s true or if he’s just being an arsehole because he can be.

'Since about half an hour ago, by the looks of your antibacterial poultice,’ he says. Accurate enough, which is a bit suspect. ‘I must say, I didn't expect she'd have clobbered you.'

'She didn't.’ I want to scowl at him but I have to keep my eyebrows still and it’s probably for the best to not take any of my feelings out on someone like Malfoy right now. He might be a bit of a dick, but none of this mess is his fault. Still. ‘How do you know this?'

'Blaise, ex-friend, very kindly informed me that our own arrangement was at its natural end and he was taking up with Ginny Weasley.’ He sighs again and I see his gaze drop to his hands, clenched in his lap. ‘Apparently they're _in love.' _

'They're in love?' I sound surprised in comparison to his wry derision, and I guess that might be because he’s had more time to process this information, if it’s true.

Thinking back, less than an hour ago, Gin was trying to explain something when I really wanted her to stop talking altogether — everything she said was like another brick on my chest and I lost it for a second, picture frames rattling on the wall, a magazine shivering and sliding off the couch and then, one lone snowglobe shattering outwards, glass flying and its tiny dragon inhabitant suddenly exposed for the first time in its life.  _ Harry, _ she’d said, her voice so concerned, so careful, that air of superiority… And what was left to say? I saw a thousand words in her eyes.  _ Look at how you’re not coping. Look at me, I’m fine, what’s wrong with you? Get yourself together, Harry. Cheer up.  _ What if what she really wanted to say was,  _ And by the way, I’m in love with fucking Blaise Zabini. _

'Apparently.'

I don’t have enough faith in her right now to not believe him, and I drop every thought of her the second my eyes start to prickle. I focus my attention on Draco fucking Malfoy, boldly sat where he is, daring to speak to me. 'What— what arrangement?' I ask, needing the diversion.

'Have a little imagination, Potter, won't you?' he says, a smirk and a tilt of his head I see in my periphery interrupted only by Pomfrey's arrival at his side.

'You're lucky I found this, we were almost cleared out last week after, well, you know,' she says, and I don’t, but he seems to. Another mystery, or the same one?

'Sadly, yes, I do know,' he says with a tight pain, and I have a sneaking suspicion that my imaginings regarding the crotch problems of Slytherin house might not be completely unfounded. 

'How are you, there, Mr Potter? All absorbed?' Pomfrey asks. I don't know how she expects me to know, I can't see it.

'I think he needs another minute, Ma'am, I'll keep an eye on him,' Malfoy says and I twitch with the urge to gape openly at him, that he would dare offer me help of any sort. 

But she just says, 'Very well, give me a shout,' and disappears again, into her office. Maybe she’s adding to the Slytherin ledger this time,  _ another case of purple sex-boils, order more ointment.  _ I'm mildly horrified she's leaving me alone with him. 

'So, Potter. My ex, your ex, both terrible people, what's say we fuck with them a bit?'

There it is, his angle. I could’ve guessed this would be a mostly selfish endeavour. Dick.

I wave my hand at the little jar in his hand and take a punt. 'Perhaps a bit less fucking with them would've done you some good?'

'And in your case, perhaps a bit more?' He cocks his head to the side and I want to belt him, sod the bloody goop on my head. Let it fall in my eyes, I can fight blind.

'I hate you,' is all I say, though, focusing on the distant stone ceiling.

'That's irrelevant and not remotely surprising,’ he huffs. ‘The question is, will you stand for your little girlfriend running off with a big bad Slytherin?'

'That's house stereotyping.'

'Not if it’s true. He's quite a bit taller than you, do you think she likes that?'

'Fuck off.'

'I bet they are. Off fucking. He's got a nice dick, you know, if you're into that.'

'Not really,' I deadpan. I won’t let him bait me so easily. Not anymore. Though I do, completely accidentally, picture it. Blaise  _ is _ tall, and stupidly handsome, and, frankly, fit as fuck, so the fact he has a nice cock doesn’t surprise me. I’ve seen him shirtless, once, and if I hadn’t already had a strong feeling all was not entirely straight, then it might’ve been all the evidence I needed. This information doesn’t help though, only makes it more annoying that, 

  1. Malfoy got with him and I did not, the pasty little motherfucker. And,
  2. Ginny also, apparently, got with him and now he’s in love with her. 



So he’s nailed both the only girl I’ve ever loved and the guy I’ve loathed since I was eleven. Add my impressed disdain to the list of things I’m keeping secret. No one new needs to know I care about the glorious state of Blaise’s dick and it’s far-reaching power. Especially not Malfoy.

'Hmm.' He sounds smug, taunting.

'What do you want, Malfoy?'

'Nothing major, you know… tattoo removal, less traumatic memories, Britain's forgiveness.’ His voice trails off like maybe he didn’t mean to say that, and I wonder if he’s told anyone else. Who’s left for him to talk to? Maybe all he had was Blaise. Only those two and Millicent came back. ‘But I'll settle for petty revenge.'

'I'm not dating you to piss Zabini off.'

'Interesting that's where your brain went.' 

'Pretend that wasn't your aim.'

'My aim is to annoy him, not confuse him.'

'So what do you need me for?'

He huffs a breath, impatient. 'I want her to suffer too, since if it wasn't for her sluttish ways I'd still have a perfectly good fuck buddy and absolutely no reason to need to talk to you.'

So that’s what was going on. 'You make it all sound so appealing.'

'What?’ I see him out of the corner of my eye, tossing his hands up in the air, like he expected me to agree to this immediately. Idiot. ‘Do you want me to pay you?'

'I don't need your money, Malfoy.'

'Then surely you need to get your own back on the girl who just left you for someone else? Apparently not even telling you that was the case.'

'It wasn't exactly—she didn't just randomly up and leave,’ I say, and I’m not sure why I’m defending her but probably because he’s always been a shared enemy, and it’ll never come naturally to let him insult anyone. ‘And it was hardly her fault.'

'Whatever, Potter. I'll think of something and let you know.' He stands to leave.

'I wish you wouldn't.'

'And yet, I will. Spend a night alone with your thoughts and see how you feel then. Ta ta.'

Twat. Unimaginable, unspeakable twat. Who the fuck says 'ta ta’? Is he an eighty year old woman? Why would I ever help him? What could he ever do for me?

‘He looks about ready, Madame Pomfrey,’ he calls out, standing over me and looking at the goop on my head. It’s unnerving, even if he seems to have no intention of getting violent. I still don’t trust him.

***

A night alone with my thoughts is not what I needed. Especially when some tit-wank has gone and drawn attention to the fact that's what I'm having. Add to that, that I'm not having anything resembling sex, a sex dream, or even a spirited wank, since every time I think of getting myself off I think one of two things: either Ginny saying, 'it just wasn't very good for either of us, was it?' or Malfoy saying, 'Interesting that's where your brain went'. The overwhelming thirst for dick that's been growing in the back of my throat for months now is far too much to deal with this late at night.

I'm going to look wrecked tomorrow and Ginny will think I've been up all night crying over her. I need to be asleep. I have some Dreamless around here somewhere, for emergencies. Is this an emergency? Trying not to look pathetic in front of your newly-ex-girlfriend? Let's say it is.

***

'Potter, you look like shit, don't you sleep?'

Malfoy is looming over me, blocking my light; my porridge is in shadow. It’s gone from a boring and slightly sad bowl of slop to fully grim and depressing slop. 'What do you want, Malfoy?'

'Acquiescence. I have an idea and it's particularly brilliant.' He grins, a hell of a difference from his usual smirk and it’s startlingly evil-seeming this early in the morning. I've barely sat down at the Gryffindor table, haven't taken more than a couple of mouthfuls, and he’s here already, in my face, ruining my alone time. What a cock-widget.

'Go on then,' I sigh, since I expect telling him to piss off will be less effective than half-ignoring him.

'We're starting our new topic in Citizenship of Britain today.'

Yes. My favourite class. Painfully upbeat life skills presentations and group work to promote 'cooperation and emotional wellbeing'. My being would be a lot weller without it. We'd hypothesised compulsory Muggle Studies after the war, but no, instead we have this travesty. I can't imagine what the Ministry had to do to convince McGonagall it was a good idea. And currently, we're in the middle of 'Family, Relationships & Reproduction', so him bringing it up can only mean one thing… unless. Fuck. He’s right. He’s fucking right. How did I not think of this already?

'Fuck,' I say to my porridge, because it's not loud enough in my head.

'Yes,' he agrees and I look up to glare at him a little just as Ginny is walking past in her prim little uniform and her too-short skirt which I used to love and now I just wonder if it contributed to Blaise taking a fancy and stealing my girlfriend. She gives me a weird look. Malfoy doesn’t seem to notice. 'We're getting our "assignments" today, Potter and you and I are currently partnered with our former significant others.'

'Fuck,' I say again, because I can see where he thinks this is going. 

'It has the potential to go one of two ways,’ he says. ‘Either the exes try the old "but can't we still be friends?" and persist in our current configuration, leading to horrifyingly awkward and painful bullshit, or Professor Fake Enthusiasm tries to exert dominance on the class again and even if they want to change we won't be allowed.'

What?

'Hang on,' I say, because that's not what I expected. 'If you think there's nothing we can do, why are you here? Why are you talking to me?'  Why must you make my life any less enjoyable that it already is? Oh right, because you’re you, and you can’t seem to help it.

'Because I didn't say there was nothing  _ we _ could do, I just don't think it'll work if  _ they _ do it. It needs to come from you, The Tit Who Lived, our Saviour, etc.' 

There it is. The expectation. The blatant abuse of power. That said... if ever there was a time... 'So you want me to demand we swap?'

'People don't say no to you, Potter,' he says. Not true. I just got dumped. That’s a resounding “no” in all caps. With glitter. ‘You represent the saccharine goodness the Ministry is conv—’

'Do people ever get a chance to say no to you?' I interrupt because, honestly, I just want him to shut up.

'Constantly,’ he sighs, and because my life only knows how to get worse, he sits down opposite me. ‘Please don't be one of them. I have to share a room with the guy who just left me for a  _ girl _ and if you do nothing I also have to do this horrific assignment with him and I might actually die.'

This sounds a lot like begging. And it sounds like he thinks I’ll give a shit if he dies, like I wouldn’t swap him instantly with any number of the dead I actually care about. 'That would make breakfast a lot more peaceful.'

'I will buy you a fucking unicorn, Potter, please.' 

'I don't think that would be remotely useful to me, being that I’m not a virgin girl or an evil disembodied arsehole.'

'A stylist then? A haircut? A new wardrobe that's hopefully a significant degree of less-drab? One new jumper that really brings out your eyes? A handbag to carry around all your issues? A dog? Am I getting close?'

'You're getting annoying?'

'Will you not keep us from further heartbreak?'

What an absolute tosser. 'What even are you? Who says that?'

'I'm very motivated.'

It’s hard to say why I’m not. Inexperience? Generally not being a vengeful sort of person? Being too fucking sad to be angry? Maybe it’s just because it’s Malfoy, and he’s always been a symbol of poor decisions made. Except he’s recently made decisions that turned out… better. And I have nothing much else to lose that could possibly be risked by  _ this _ .

'Fine.'

'You'll do it?'

'I will. There you go, acquiescence. Now bugger off.' I turn back to my sad porridge and hear the shift of him getting to his feet.

'You probably won't regret this,' he says.

I can’t help being sarcastic. 'I am literally filled with confidence.' And what would almost pass as curiosity if it were any other person, but it's Malfoy so it must be horror.

He walks away and I’m left alone to eat and wonder what I’ve agreed to. Can it be worse than sitting a few metres away from my newly-ex-girlfriend and knowing that being alone is just something I’m going to have to get used to? Maybe. 

***

Hermione and Ron are late to breakfast for reasons I expect are both highly unsavoury and just as depressing for the newly single. We barely have a chance to talk before second period when we have Citizenship of Britain, our weekly punishment for surviving the war.

Everyone knows we’re getting our partnered assignments today; we were paired up last week, back when Malfoy and I were content, if not entirely safe, in our relationships. Mine so public the whole country knew and his so private, no one did. I asked Hermione; no one’s said anything about him or Blaise being  _ so inclined _ . Let it be said, if I’d known, I still wouldn’t have expected us to ever talk to each other, despite what we apparently have in common.

Gin is sitting across from me, the one long table that dominates the room not nearly big enough to keep her at a comfortable distance anymore. And she’s not politely put herself further down the other end, she’s sat near on purpose, probably expecting us to still have to work together. I wonder if she considered that last night? When she told me we were  _ “probably better off” _ not trying to make it work.

Of course, Malfoy decides to sit  _ right next to me _ like the two of them are competing to make me more uncomfortable. Ron gapes, stopping halfway through whatever he was saying to stare at him. Hermione, fucking hell, looks intrigued, and isn’t that a bad omen?

Professor Van Mill clears her throat and stops Ron from saying whatever it is he wants to say and it probably wouldn’t have been kind, so it’s probably for the best. She babbles for a while about the beauty of procreation and emotional readiness and I see everyone’s eyes rolling or glazing over and I wonder how we’re meant to broach the subject of swapping partners. She pauses and Malfoy nudges me and I know he said it’d be better coming from me, but he could at least help me out. Except everyone’s still a bit wary of him, so maybe not.

The opportunity goes by and she starts in about how this assignment will test our ability to be selfless (because I haven’t had enough of that) and make decisions about someone else’s life and safety (I think we’ve both explored that one to death). She ends on the value of knowing the responsibility of child-bearing as young adults, right as she waves her wand and a large, sealed crate appears on the table in front of her. It’s now or not at all.

‘Excuse me, Professor?’ I ask and everyone turns to look at me. ‘I’d like to switch partners.’

Ginny’s head turns so fast I half expect it to fall off. Blaise looks worried for a second, then hopeful, then annoyed, because he doesn’t know his ex-whatever already agreed to this, instigated it. Malfoy won’t fight him on this, Blaise can have my ex-girlfriend all to himself and see, right away, whether they’ve got what it takes as a couple. Trial by fire. Worse... by  _ fake baby assignment _ . My loathing of this ridiculous project wanes slightly. I almost smile as I imagine what he’s in for. Sleepless nights, crying charms and feeding schedules. Suffer, you fuckwit.

‘Mr Potter, we allocated partners last week, everyone is already paired up and committed.’

'I really don't fancy having a fake baby with my ex-girlfriend, Professor. I would literally rather have one with my only living enemy.' 

‘I can see why it might not be ideal, but-’

‘I think it goes beyond ‘not ideal’, Professor. In my fragile mental state, you know, after the war, and then being dumped for a Slytherin, I just don’t think I could cope.’

‘Oh, well, I see. Well. It would depend on another pair being willing to swap with you?’

‘What d’you reckon, Malfoy,’ I say as I turn to him for the first time all lesson. ‘Wanna have a fake baby with me?’

He smirks. Raises an eyebrow. Looks for a second like he’s going to refuse, then says, ‘Sounds brilliant, Potter. Blaise, Miss Weasley, is that okay with you?’ His voice lowers, turning sharp. ‘Do you want to raise a baby together?’

‘Very funny, old man,’ Blaise starts, his grin broad but unsure. ‘But come on, now, I—’

‘We’ll do it,’ Gin cuts him off, eyes blazing hazel fire. Her competitive edge comes in handy again. Shame it’s against me this time. Kind of wonderful that Blaise isn’t enjoying himself though. Dick.

'Very well,’ Van Mill agrees, falsely chirpy and all business again. ‘It seems we’re all in agreement. Though it’s worth mentioning that the egg is charmed to react to the emotional state of the parents, just like a normal human child. So negative emotions will have a detrimental effect.’ She looks at each of us in turn, not sure what she’s seeing unfold.

I answer for all of us, but mostly for myself. ‘Then I definitely think avoiding exes is a good move.’

She nods, giving up, and cracks open the crate to a cacophony of eerily realistic wails. I take a deep breath. There’s no way she’d give us real babies. Surely not. Everything will be fine. 

***

‘I'm not poor,’ I sigh. I wish we could’ve done this assignment without all the talking but Malfoy seems intent on ruining the low hum of nothingness in the corridors as we walk to get morning tea. The Professor held us back, of course, to “make sure we were making the right decision for the baby”. Not a minute had passed before Blaise was arguing with Malfoy and Gin was glaring daggers at me like this was my fault. Like I broke up with myself. Van Mill gave in pretty quick and shooed us out into the corridor. I don’t know where Gin and Blaise went and I don’t care.

‘I didn't say you were,’ Malfoy huffs. ‘I said you grew up like a peasant.’ He’s fussing with the baby blanket and his words come out strangely gentle.

‘Slave, more like,’ I say, and who knows why I’m telling him.

‘What?’ 

‘My family are…’ I want to say “cunts” but I don't, and settle for, 'the worst sort of people.' 

‘Worse than mine?’ He seems incredulous. The self-awareness is disarming and I almost smile.

‘Worse than yours. At least yours cared about you.’ 

He gives me a long look, arms wrapped around the soft bundle of our new charge, a large blanky-swaddled golden egg, not unlike the one I rescued in the Triwizard thing. ‘We don't have time to unpack this Potter, but how about I let you name the egg and you can break the cycle of abuse and be good to your new egg daughter like a proper egg daddy.’ 

‘Okay. Thanks.’ This time I do smile, because “egg daddy” sounds perverse and fucking bizarre in his posh accent. ‘You want to do middle name?’ 

‘That's very decent of you,’ he says.

This is how our daughter ends up being called Meggan Camelopardalis Malfoy-Potter. Surname hyphenated alphabetically, of course.


	2. Go The Fuck To Sleep

**_Eighth Year Suite_ **

**_Bedtime_ **

**_Day 1_ **

The first “night’s watch” is decided by coin toss and I lose. Fortunately, I guess, so does Ron, so we’re together in our hapless attempts to soothe our new egg daughters. Hermione looks somewhat worried as we pad away from her, off down the boys corridor to our shared room, warm bundles of fake baby clutched to our chests. Malfoy looks dubious, rather than worried, but he can fuck off, because it’s a magic egg, not his actual heir.

Our room is the same as all the others in the eighth year suite, hidden away in the top corner of the castle’s east wing. Ron and I have the middle one along the boys corridor, so we’re the same distance from the bathroom at one end and the modestly-sized, drably decorated common room at the other. They’re sort of weird bedrooms though, wide enough to fit a queen size bed either side of the door as you walk in, but not much space beyond that. Between the beds and the window we have one large ornate wardrobe and one small table that serves as a desk. It’s like the rooms were built for one and a half people. And also weirdos who don’t mind having the head of their bed right next to the door. I lasted two nights before I picked up all my bedding and started sleeping with my head at the foot. Ron didn’t even last one.

When we walk in we see that two tiny purple cots have appeared, one by each bed, just the right height to be on a level with the mattress. It’s easy to notice because the already-narrow space between the two beds is now  _ half _ the size of a doorway and even less convenient than it was before. There’s a soft cushion in the bottom of each cot, but it’s not shaped to the curve of the egg and I immediately worry that she’ll roll off onto the floor if I forget the gate things. I don’t need our chances of doing well in the assignment to be ruined before even one day has passed. I roll up a couple of clean t-shirts and wedge the egg in place. Safe. It makes a cooing sound. Ron’s one farts. We laugh as silently as we can and fall into bed happy, relaxed and with no idea we’re going to be awake again in two hours.

_ *** _

‘Rough night, Potter? Was our daughter too much for you to handle?’ Malfoy slides easily into the seat opposite me at the Gryffindor table and holds out his arms, expectant. I hand the egg over, gladly, and pour myself a tea now that I don’t have to be worried about spilling it on her head.

‘It’s loud,’ I say. ‘It’s loud a  _ lot. _ Approximately every two to three hours.’

‘Maybe your company isn’t very relaxing.’

‘I look forward to seeing how relaxing yours is tonight,’ I say and glare at him for a second before I realise how much extra effort that takes.

‘We’ll be fine, won’t we, Meggan?’ he says to the egg, and the level of whimsy that takes—that he apparently has going spare—surprises me. Though. I don’t suppose he’s been anything but a dramatic, overly theatrical, attention-seeking little shit for the last seven years. It’s just when he’d used all of it for evil, it was hard to see the merit in it. The Buckbeak thing (“oh my arm, blah blah blah”), the Dementor impressions (“ooooo-ooo”), the “I’m Harry Potter, look at me, I’m fainting” phase. In hindsight it all indicated a certain level of, I dunno,  _ playfulness,_ alongside the more noticeable levels of cockheadness.

‘Do you want anything to eat?’ I ask, because I’ve handed the egg-baby over before he could fix himself anything. ‘Bacon roll?’

‘Er, yeah,’ he gives me a weird look. ‘Sure. Thanks.’

It’s at some point while trying to decide if Malfoy’s the sort of person who prefers moist, juicy bacon or dry, crispy bacon that I realise I’m making my last living enemy a sandwich and I marvel at the unending weirdness of my life. ‘Sauce?’ I ask, sighing.

‘Mayonnaise, if you don’t mind.’

‘Not brown sauce?’ 

‘Sauce named after its colour is for commoners.’ he says. Twat.

‘I’ve seen you eat lasagne,’ I counter.

‘Yes, your point is what?’

‘It has white sauce in it.’

‘That’s— Potter, really, were you born on a city bus? Do you have no idea about anything?’

‘I know what the colour white is.’

‘It’s called a  _ béchamal._ Not “white sauce”. You absolute peasant.’

‘Could you be a little less condescending  _ while I’m making you breakfast?’ _

‘Should you be touching my food if you don’t know what a  _ béchamal _ is?’

‘I know what it is, I just didn’t know it had a wanky French name. And I can make a rather good one, if the need arises. Luckily your bacon roll doesn’t need it or I’d be inclined to give it to you dry.’

‘You’d give it to me dry?’ He raises his eyebrow and in my slow and unslept state it takes far too long to figure out why, even if the hot blush is just as quick as ever once it clicks. I almost add a  _ fuck you _ to the conversation but I’ve just suggested as much already and saying it will only make it worse.

‘I hate you,’ I say instead, but without the venom it needs to mean anything. It comes out sounding as though I’m completely okay with it and maybe I am. It’s simmered down to a nice easy sort of hate this year. Like, yes, Malfoy’s still a twat, but I don’t really  _ care _ anymore. He’s mellowed a bit as well. Hermione reckons it’s because he doesn’t have all his friends here. The panicked last-minute defection has to be a bit embarrassing too, even if he wasn’t really into the Voldemort stuff to begin with. Maybe just being bullied and shamed was enough of his own medicine to make him realise that purposely going out of his way to be a dick wasn’t okay. He doesn’t pick on people anymore. He’s persistently annoying in other ways.

‘Not in front of our daughter, Potty, she’ll be scarred for life if she has to listen to her fathers fight.’ He smirks as I hand him his bacon roll. Doesn’t say thank you. Git. Dunno what I expected.

‘We need to fill out the birth certificate Van Mill gave us.’ I gesture at the mostly empty table. ‘And the parenting diary. Should we do it now? Neutral ground and all that.’

He swallows a mouthful. ‘Do you have it with you?’

I... don’t, it’s on my desk, with all the other parchment I pulled out of the bottom of my bag looking for something sugary at around 5am this morning. ‘Nope.’ I sigh this morning’s fifth pathetic huff of wind and drop my chin in my hand. ‘On my desk.’

‘Summon it.’ He takes another bite, a big one. Lord, his mouth is  _ encompassing. _ I can’t believe he has the nerve to insult my table manners when he’s annihilating that roll at such a speed. What’s a bet he’ll blame me for his indigestion?

‘What?’

‘Triwizard Tournament. Task one. You summoned your broom from almost a quarter mile away. Your room’s not that far from here, as the parchment flies.’

‘My broom flew out an open window and across a field. Not through a mess of corridors from behind a locked door. Plus, parchment’s too fragile. It’ll rip.’ I’m tempted to try it though, regardless. But I’d probably just embarrass myself.

‘Fine. We’ve got Charms first, we can pick it up after breakfast and do it then. Flitwick won’t mind so long as we get his work done first.’

I moan in utter horror. ‘Did you have to remind me? I hate climate regulation charms, they’re impossible.’ I let my elbow slide out and collapse onto the table. ‘Somebody kill me,’ I say into the wood.

‘I’ve passed that point in my life, Potter; you’re not worth it anymore.’ He smiles at me when I turn my head to glare at him one-eyed. ‘Especially if you intend to keep making me breakfast. You’ve got the meat to bun to condiment ratio nearly perfect.’

‘I’m so glad I could serve you to your liking.’

Meggan makes a gurgly sound and Malfoy bounces her a little on his knee, smiling serenely down at her golden dome where it pokes out of the blanket. If I didn’t know better — that he’s still a selfish, spoilt wanker — I’d swear he was enjoying this whole parenting thing. 

***

That night, my head barely touches the pillow and I’m asleep. The day dissolves into memory and my subconscious plays with the remains. Malfoy demonstrates a charm with his left hand, Meggan tucked under his right. Flitwick calls everyone  _ Daddy _ and Hermione rants about it, a rant that morphs into a lecture about foal care for Thestrals and how they shouldn’t be allowed to drink sugarfree Butterbeer (it’s just  _ chemicals _ ). Ron is there, somewhere in the background, laughing and patting me on the back. Playing a saxophone. Rough-housing. Shoving me. Shaking me awake. 

‘Harry, th’ fuck,’ he moans, too close, above me in the dark. ‘Dickhead’s here. Tell him to fuck off w’ you?’

‘Who?’ I ask, too soon, as Malfoy’s voice comes through the door, a wailing egg baby battling for dominance. ‘Fuck,’ I say. 

‘Yes, fuck, now gerrid of ‘im,’ Ron grumbles, falling back into bed and wrapping himself in his blankets again.

The floor is like ice. My pyjamas are old and a bit ratty and the button’s missing on the fly.  _ Fuck. _ I want a jumper but I want Malfoy gone and quiet more.

The handle squeaks as it turns. ‘What?’ I hiss at him through the gap, reluctant to open the door fully.

‘She won’t stop crying and I’ve tried everything,’ he hisses, ‘What did you do last night?’ He says it like I’m hiding some sort of secret from him, like there’s a fake-egg-baby conspiracy and he’s at the losing end of it. He looks tired and harrassed and, worse,  _ determined. _ I let him in. Ron is going to kill me.

The second they’re inside though, the wailing stops. The egg coos, burbles. We stand there, frozen, waiting. The chill is creeping up my ankles.

‘Well. I guess that did it,’ Malfoy whispers. He looks awkward and relieved and he nods a thank you and turns to go. By the time he’s touching the doorknob, she’s starting to grizzle. The door opens and she lets out a  _ wahh _ so he closes it again. She coos. 

Fuck. Despite the lack of sleep and the slow brain activity, the evidence is clear. She prefers it here. Fine. I’ll be night-dad and he can be day-dad. He can get one of those cool front-pack baby carrier things to cart her around in and I’ll get a new best friend, because Ron might really, actually kill me, or move out, or possibly both.

Malfoy pads back across the floor and I notice that he’s barefoot and unjumpered as well. He must be freezing. Desperate.

‘Leave her with me,’ I say, trying to sound like I’m okay with it. Like it’s not a giant pain in the arse. Like he doesn’t owe me  _ so hard. _

He doesn’t even say anything, then, just nods dumbly and places her in the little purple crib. ‘I like what you did there, with the cushioning stuff. It’s good.’ He nods again. ‘Right,’ he says, and turns, pads back across the floor. He has his hand on the door again when she squawks, cries, whimpers, and I hope like hell he’s not just going to leave me with it like this as she winds up for a big one. 

He doesn’t, and once he’s back beside me, she falls silent again. And my brain is treacle and I’m confused and I’m cold and I’m tired and as the seconds tick by and she still doesn’t cry, I manage to think about what that means and then the real dread sets in.

‘She hates us,’ I say.

‘She hates us individually. Apparently standing next to each other in the freezing darkness of your shitty bedroom, she’s okay with us.’

‘Our baby is a sadist,’ I agree. 

_ ‘All _ babies are sadists,’ comes a muffled voice from Ron’s bed, filtered through layers of patchwork. ‘Get over it.’

It’s too cold. I pull the covers back and get in bed again, leaving Malfoy standing in the middle of the room. I fluff my pillows and avoid looking at him. Maybe if I draw it out long enough Meggan will fall asleep and he’ll never have to get between my sheets.

‘What are you doing?’ he hisses at me eventually.

‘I’m going back to sleep,’ I whisper. ‘What are you doing? You can’t stand there all night.’ I punctuate my words with a hopefully-not-too-inviting sweep of covers on the other side of the bed, next to the wall. I need him to stay if she’s going to sleep. If  _ I’m _ going to sleep. Thank Merlin for whoever decided the eighth years deserved bigger beds. If we were still in singles I don’t think I’d have it in me to share with anyone, let alone  _ him. _

‘You want me to get in your  _ bed?' _

‘I want her to not cry and for all of us to be asleep. I don’t mind if you’d rather share with Ron.’

A muffled  _ ‘Fuck off,’ _ emerges from the quilts on the other side of the room.

‘Looks like that’s not an option. Get in.’

‘Potter…’

‘Just—’ I sigh. I’m too tired for this. ‘Please, Malfoy, don’t make this harder than it needs to be.’

I feel the bed dip, down by my knee, and the rustle of fabric. ‘Heaven forbid getting in bed with you makes things  _ hard,’ _ he whispers. A shift of weight to the other side and the bounce of a body settling. The covers twitch away from me as he wriggles under them. 

‘Don’t make it weird,’ I tell him and roll away toward Meggan’s cot and my best friend and the part of my life that isn’t entirely mental.

‘Potter, it’s already weird — you’ve just made me the envy of half the girls in this school, an unprecedented event. Normally only the boys envy me.’

‘Yes, well, you’ve made me far  _ less _ enviable right now, so thank you for that. Good night.’

‘I’ll give you  _ "night"; _ I’ll tell you if it was any  _ good _ in the morning.’

I don’t answer him. He’s too annoying, and apparently incapable of not being a prick, though at least Meggan is quiet and Ron hasn’t completely disowned me yet. I breathe deeply and focus on happy memories like my therapist taught me, replaying nights at The Burrow ‘round the kitchen table. Christmases, Quidditch games, swimming in the pond over summer, learning new charms, feasts, scones, treacle tarts, cups of tea at just the right temperature… I’m almost calm when he moves behind me and something brushes my arse and my thoughts go elsewhere.

Excellent. Now I want to have a wank and I can’t because Malfoy’s in my bed. Thinking about it too hard doesn’t even help, because it reminds me of the last time I was in a bed with someone and then I’m sad because it was Ginny and she’s left me.

That said, if she ever found out I was sharing a bed with someone else so soon, even innocently, it’d probably wipe that sympathetic smile off her face. Maybe this wasn’t the worst idea.

I go back to thoughts of food and family and presents and summer and ignore the boy in my bed. Nothing else touches me ‘til morning.


	3. Prince & Knight

**_Great Hall_ **

**_Morning tea_ **

**_Day 3_ **

‘You three look a little worse for wear?’ Hermione says in (cruel, heartless) greeting, connections sparking behind her eyes as she wonders how we’ve managed to appear together. Three men and an egg baby. Definitely a situation, definitely not comedy.

‘Someone brought us a baby in the middle of the night and then decided to sleep over,’ Ron grumbles.

‘Draco?’ she guesses.

‘No, it was someone else that neither of us have a baby with, very strange man,’ I say, and I know I’m being that sarcastic, dickish version of myself and I can’t bring myself to give even half a shit because I just spent the night in a bed with Malfoy and somehow didn’t wake up with daggers in my back. (There was something poking my thigh, though and I definitely don’t want to think too hard about that, no pun intended). ‘Malfoy is merely a coincidence.’

‘Pardon me, I’m  _ merely _ nothing.’

‘Sorry, my bad, Malfoy is nothing.’

He takes a breath to mansplain himself, catches the fact (admirably) that I’m taking the piss and just sits down instead, holding his hands out for the devil-egg. I hand it over and start making us a breakfast we can’t spill on a baby, because that’s apparently what I do now.

Hermione watches me while she explains what she’s decided to name their egg, something about a swan and Greek mythology that I absolutely cannot follow this early in the morning. Ron nods distractedly at her and looks hopefully toward the toast I’m buttering and I sigh again, snagging another couple pieces for him. Orange marmalade for the ginger and for Malfoy, jam for me. Dispersed. Ron pours tea. I eat my toast and wonder when I’ll get to eat porridge again. Maybe I can sneak into the kitchens later and indulge myself. Ha. Illicit  _ porridge. _

There’s silent munching, Meggan and “Leda” burble happily at each other, all their parents together, bizarrely, sharing breakfast. A week ago I would’ve declared this scenario a weird dream, cheese-induced, mental even to think it. Now I have to live my life with the fact the first time I shared a bed with a half-decent-looking guy, it was fucking Malfoy,  _ Ron _ was there as well, and I didn’t even get off. Couldn’t even have a wank. And tonight, that damn egg is hideously likely to perform the same cursed charade. Which means sharing a bed with Malfoy and his morning wood is going to be another Thing I Have To Do™, but I won’t be able to bloody talk about it. Ron’d be horrified Malfoy’d had an erection in the same room as him, not because he’s judgemental, just because it’s Malfoy. Hermione would likely try and use it to  _ manage _ my coming-out and she has a habit of organising all the fun out of things. Because she’d  _ know _ the second I said anything, that sharing a bed with Malfoy didn’t bother me nearly as much as it should.

***

The next morning isn’t much different, I wake again to a sense of being cheated by life and the dubious pleasure of seeing Malfoy’s cock tenting my winter-weight duvet. It’s almost impressive but only if I think about it and I’m not going to do that before coffee. Tea isn’t going to cut it anymore.

Ron disappeared some time in the night when Leda wouldn’t settle and I can take a guess he and Hermione dealt with that together. If them showing up to breakfast hand in hand looking slightly more in love than normal wasn’t enough to confirm it, Millicent, over on the Slytherin table, looking positively livid would do it. I’m thinking there’s a good reason she was down here early and they arrived a bit late. 

Malfoy holds the baby, I wrap sausages and egg in a soft bread roll, adding, apparently, “just the right amount of ketchup”, and we go through the whole thing again. Baby in classes, juggling her and my wand, my quill, my books. Passing her back and forth so much she grizzles all the way through Potions. It gets to the point where I start designing makeshift papooses in my head, while Malfoy chops both his roots and mine under the dubious eye of a baby-phobic Horace Slughorn. He disapproves of  _ “such an interfering sort of assignment" _ that  _ “distracts you from the importance of your academic studies”. _ I act extra paternal to rile him up because fuck him, it’s not like we had a choice, so why is he bitching at the victims of Van Mill’s little crusade?

Malfoy gives me a weird look the second time I mention playdates, looking up from the cauldron. I’m leaning next to him with my back against the table to shield Meggan from any potential splattering. He’s already insisted it isn’t necessary because he  _ “doesn’t splatter, thank you very much", _ but I don’t want to be the reason we fail this assignment because he’ll never let it go. I step in closer as he stirs, so we’re side to side, touching. I whisper how maybe being extra parental might piss Slughorn off a bit, if he fancies having some fun at the old creep’s expense?

‘How is having to deal with Weasley and Granger’s egg as well as Meggan,’ he hisses in my ear, ‘going to inconvenience our Potions professor?’ 

‘We don’t have to actually  _ do _ it, he just-’ I take a breath, pretending I didn’t phrase it like that and thankfully we’re close enough he won’t see me blush. ‘He looks really uncomfortable about everyone taking care of their eggs and he’s giving us an unreasonable amount of shit about it considering it’s not our fault it’s happening.’

‘You noticed that, too?’

'It’s hard not to notice he's a bloody great pillock.’

'He’s no Snape,’ Malfoy agrees and apparently I can’t leave that alone either.

'Despite his efforts in the war,  _ he _ was also a pillock, to be fair.’

‘Only to you.’

'Me  _ and _ Neville. And does that make it okay somehow?’ I scowl. 'I suppose the one thing I could say about  _ you _ is that you were an equal opportunity dickhead. No one avoided your scorn. No one outside of Slytherin, anyway.’

'I’ll have you know I was a dick to a fair few of them too.’

'Well, it’s apparently all Zabini saw you as. A dick.’

Malfoy smirks at my clever wordplay, against his will if the twisted resolution to his expression is anything to go by. He’s trying to frown, I think, and failing a bit. 

‘So kind of you to draw attention to my failed relationship, Potter, when I’ve so generously refrained from mentioning your own. Why did Miss Weasley decide she fancied Blaise, do you know?’

Because I’m undergoing some sort of uncontrollable fascination with cock? Because I’m bored of girls? Because there’s this whole other part of me I know about now but haven’t had a chance to explore? 

‘Well, he’s better looking than me,’ I say. 'Probably smarter, less damaged, and if your whining and constant bitterness about losing him is anything to go by, he’s obviously amazing in bed as well.’

‘You’re right, he is better looking than you, and less damaged, but he is definitely not smarter. And I dare say I would have to do more research before confirming whether he was better than you in bed.’

‘What?’ I ask, feeling like I’ve lost control of the conversation as he slides the chopped root into the cauldron. 

‘I might know Blaise,’ he says, ‘but I know nothing of you. Assumption of your skill level would be pointless, and if I’m honest, probably not very flattering.’

‘You assume I’m crap at stuff all the time; when have you ever been right?’

‘Touché,’ he says and lowers his eyes to the flame, adjusting it slightly. ‘Herein I will assume you to be utterly marvellous in bed and thereabouts, so long as you have your broomstick on hand and Weasley and Granger to help you use it. Fair?’

‘I’ll be honest, neither of them have been nearly as helpful as Ron’s brother, Charlie.’

Malfoy drops his wand. I keep my eyes on Meggan, the peak of her dome shining in the swaddled blankets. We’re near enough that I feel him turn away to pick it up and then he’s close in my periphery, breath on my neck. Why the fuck would I bring up Charlie  _ now? _ Is it so important that I defend my honour, that I tell him that yes, I might have let this one girl down, but maybe it was because she was a  _ girl _ at a time when I wanted a  _ boy, _ and not because I’m useless to everyone? There’s no need for him to know or care that we share certain… interests. Telling him seems a bit blunt, suggestive. And I’m not suggesting anything. Just because we shared a bed the last couple of nights. Fuck, what if he’s annoyed I didn’t tell him and let him share my bed? Is that not cool — does he feel violated? He was straight up about his own feelings towards men and probably assumed I was only into girls and thus, safe. But now what? Is he going to think I lured him there, lied to him, took advantage of him while he slept?

But all he says is, ‘Is he the one who works with the dragons?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Fuck, Potter, you don’t do things by halves do you?’

He sounds almost awed and it comes as such a surprise I make the mistake of turning my head and we’re suddenly only a handbreadth apart and my eyes are already devouring him, ready as they were to decode his expression so I could make sense of his words. He’s very close and his eyes are almost blue in this light and I can feel him, heat and breath and the soft prickle of his magic touching me. He’s... not  _ unattractive. _

I turn away again. I don’t know what to say that won’t sound idiotic or too sexual for standing in a full Potions classroom with your former nemesis. ‘I figure if there’s one way to find out for certain if that’s what you’re into, it should be the sort of person you’re likely to be attracted to anyway. So you can be sure.’

‘So you have a type? Ginger Quidditch players?’

‘The ginger isn’t necessary,’ I say, too quickly, thinking of Cho but realising a second too late it could just as easily mean him. ‘Cho had dark hair.’

‘Cho had the best tits in the school and literally everything else anyone could ever have wanted. I can’t believe how thoroughly you fucked that up.’

‘What do you know about  _ that?' _

‘I know you went out  _ once. _ acted like a useless tit and never bothered asking her out again, like an idiot.’

‘It was the weirdest, most awkward date in the world, I hardly wanted to go through it  _ again. _ How do you know this?’

‘Pansy. She talks rather a lot.’

‘About me?’

‘We did so like to watch you fail,’ he smiles. ‘Back when your failure wouldn’t’ve meant our own devastation, of course. Good job with the war and all that.’

‘No problem, glad I could help,’ I say, wishing he hadn’t brought it up. Meggan lets out a little grizzle.

‘Are you upset with me?’

I consider pretending I’m not, but the baby seems very sensitive to our emotions and her making unhappy sounds is tantamount to a big red warning light that one of us is feeling a bit… tense, I guess. Repressed. Shouty, punchy, stabby, any of those things.

‘Sometimes I find myself not hating you and then I’ll suddenly remember why I did in the first place and it’s… I dunno. Jarring.’

‘Right. Probably not the time or place to discuss all of that, but…’ He gives the contents of the cauldron a single clockwise stir. ‘Do know that… I often feel the same way. About me. About you too, at times, but mostly I’m cross at myself for being so blind to what was going on around me. Or cross at my parents for letting it happen. Or Dumbledore for not ending it sooner, or… all sorts of things. Sorry. We can talk about it later if you want. Or never again, if you prefer.’

‘Maybe later,’ I say, and hold Meggan a little tighter, stroking the warm gold dome and making her coo.

The rest of the class is slightly awkward, heavy, and we forget all about provoking Slughorn in an effort to get our potion done. It probably still manages to weird him out that Malfoy and I are getting along and taking care of an egg baby, though; he keeps shooting us odd looks. Maybe he’s a massive homophobe. Maybe we have an even better reason to fuck with him than just his disapproval of the assignment. I make a mental note to mention it to Malfoy later, and do my share of the stirring while Meggan’s other fake dad bounces her ‘til she giggles.

***

That night, over dinner, Ron asks me if Malfoy’s going to be in our room again. I see Hermione, on his other side, stop moving to listen, gravy jug poised over her potatoes. Interesting. If he was trying to keep it from her he really should’ve been quieter.

‘I don’t know, maybe not, if she’s happy with just me. Why?’ I know why, or at least I think I do, but I could be wrong. I’m guessing that: 

  1. He doesn’t want to sleep near Malfoy, because he’s still kind of ‘The Enemy’, and;
  2. He rather likes the idea of getting to legitimately shack up with Hermione.



‘I was just thinking it’s kinda nice, you three being together as a family, having your own space. You know. Practising. For like, life.’

Wow. The tactical brain under all that orange is just  _ on fire _ tonight. 

‘Yeah, it’s a shame they didn’t room us with our assignment partners,’ I say with a smirk. 'Really, it’s not very realistic having separate rooms. I mean, if they’re going to do an experiment like this, they should’ve been more organised so we could get accurate results. As it is, people will find it difficult for reasons that have nothing to do with the actual babies.’ I wink at him and he blushes just a fraction. ‘Don’t you think, Hermione?’ I ask. ‘That for the point of this assignment to really sink in, they would have to make us live out the most realistic scenario? I mean, taking turns having the baby overnight is completely idealistic. More likely, you’d both be up in the night and both end up sleep-deprived.’

‘Absolutely,’ she says, and doesn’t stop for a full minute about the inequity of labour. Already, she’s noted that girls are being given the brunt of the care work, and with little thanks or recompense. The only girl in the combined seventh and eighth years who isn’t overworked is Millicent, who “accidentally” dropped her egg-daughter (Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Ravenway III) down the stairs this morning and is declaring it a feminist action, since she, Millicent, deserves to sleep. 

‘She probably won’t want you and Leda in with her tonight then, will she?’ Ron says. ‘Come stay with us. Harry won’t mind.’

I  _ don’t _ mind, but only because I’d much prefer I wasn’t the only one with a bed-guest and there’s no chance they’ll be getting up to something if both me and Malfoy are there.

‘Sure, we can have a playdate after dinner,’ I say, my eyes flicking up to the staff table to see Slughead stuffing his face with potato, gravy dripping onto his chin. Gross. 

Hermione starts planning things at Ron, her eyes all wide and excited, and I make a mental note that he owes me one. Big time. Over at the Slytherin table, where Malfoy and Millicent are sitting opposite each other, Malfoy is doing his best to eat thick slices of roast beef with just his fork. I look down at my almost empty plate.

Should I go over there and help him cut his meat? Is that weird? We have a breakfast routine pretty much sorted but dinner hasn’t really been discussed yet. I make a list in my head of reasons I shouldn’t do anything drastic like walk over to Slytherin and cut up Malfoy’s meat for him, not least of which is the fact it’ll look super gay and I’m entirely not ready to deal with any of that yet, just for the sake of being helpful. I try not to watch him struggle as I finish my own food, unfettered by the need to hold Meggan as well. Maybe I could just go over there and take her, give him some time to eat properly. That’s less weird. I’ll do that.

‘Where’re you going? There’s trifle tonight,’ Ron sounds aghast at the thought I might miss out.

‘My turn with Meggan,’ I say, and try and walk casually, like me and Malfoy had planned this. I’ve not been to the Slytherin table before, he’s always come to us, and I’m not convinced I’ll be well-received. I wonder if they all know I’m partnered with Malfoy for this assignment, is that the kind of thing Slytherins gossip about? Maybe it’ll look like I’ve come to start a fight.

Millicent announces my arrival with a slight nod and Malfoy turns away from her to see what she’s been diverted by. He smiles when he sees it’s me and I feel considerably less like an endangered animal. I hold my arms out for the baby and his expression turns soft for a second. 

‘Oh,’ he says, like he’s surprised. ‘Decent of you, Potter.’

‘Always that tone of surprise,’ I say as I bundle Meggan close.

‘Have a seat,’ Millicent gestures at the space next to Malfoy and he turns, throwing her a sharp look that seems sort of unwelcoming. 

‘Oh, no, I don’t want to impose.’

‘We insist,’ she says. ‘Sit.’

‘Of course,’ Malfoy recovers some sort of smile but I don’t trust it, and it’s with a decent amount of reluctance that I actually sit down. ‘Dessert should be up soon.’

‘Yeah,’ I say, trying to be gracious about this new, uncomfortable, Slytherin version of hospitality. ‘Trifle tonight, apparently.’

‘Draco’s favourite,’ Millicent purrs, smirking. I can’t think why that deserves a smirk, it’s only a dessert.

‘More of a treacle tart man, myself,’ I say, for the sake of saying something.

‘Yes, well, everyone has different tastes. I’m all about steamed pudding and custard myself.’ Somehow she makes it sound dirty. ‘Though Draco’s been known to enjoy that, too.’

‘Mrs Weasley makes the best steamed pud,’ I say without thinking about the company, merely desperate for it not to go awkwardly silent.

‘Excellent at killing my aunt also, do thank her for me,’ Draco says, and a second later there’s a scuffle under the table and he’s wincing, while Millicent glares bloody murder at him. I’m not sure what’s happening.

‘You’ll have to excuse Draco, Potter, he’s an impolite shit sometimes,  _ aren’t you, Draco?’  _

‘I meant it in the nicest possible way; my aunt was a menace and deserved what came to her. No hard feelings. I mean, it was actually pretty impressive. The power it would’ve ta—’

‘But you can’t just talk about people’s mothers like that, Draco,’ she cuts him off. ‘Adoptive or not. How would you like it? What if someone brought up all of your own parents’ morally grey decisions?’

Oh, look. It got awkward anyway. I say the first witty thing that pops into my head. ‘We’d be here all night.’

Millicent lets out a surprised laugh, a loud  _ haa! _ that leaves her looking delighted and impressed. Malfoy, when I sneak a glance at him, looks… conflicted. Which is probably better than flat-out angry, considering. 

‘Touché, Potter.’

‘Always with the French,’ I say, and bounce Meggan a bit on my knee. ‘Your other Daddy is a bit of a posh one, isn’t he?’ I say to her. ‘Lord knows what I was thinking when I agreed to this.’

‘I was wondering myself,’ Millicent says. ‘But Draco explained it very articulately, and let it be said, I  _ totally _ get it.’

‘Yeah, it seems Blaise is being a bit of a dick about things.’

‘Who?’ Millicent says, and I wonder if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick somehow. Except the stick is Malfoy, so who could ever tell? Maybe both ends are wrong. There’s another scuffling sound from under the table and it’s Millicent’s turn to look pained. It’s weird, I don’t really know what’s going on and Malfoy will barely even look at me. It seems he’s fine with turning up in my bedroom in the middle of the night being needy, but I can’t turn up and be helpful at a nice normal time of day.

‘Right,’ I say, and stand. ‘See you later, then.’

‘Goodbye, Potter, nice to meet you properly,’ Millicent calls out. 

Malfoy says nothing, and when I look back, he’s attacking his roast beef with something like anger and Millicent looks like she’s just had a dangerous amount of fun at our expense. And I can’t even tell how.


	4. Things That Go Bump in the Night

**_Eighth Year Suite, Common Room_ **

**_Evening_ **

**_Day 4_ **

That night, after dinner, Ron and I are rolling transfigured balls back and forth across the hearth rug, eggs propped up in our outstretched legs acting as goalies. The eighth year common room is only modestly sized, so games have to be very quiet or involve everyone. It’s a square room, two walls of windows, and very… grey. The rugs are grey, the brickwork of the giant fireplace is grey, the couches and chairs and study tables are grey. Hermione is presiding over us, intermittently sipping chamomile from a grey cup and reading excerpts from ‘What To Expect When You’re Expecting’, it’s bright cover in contrast with the walls and ceiling, also grey. 

So far neither Ron or I have received a ball to the balls and we have our brilliant egg daughters to thank for it. Until Malfoy appears and manages to distract me for a second and the soft foam ball slips past my thigh to tap against my right nut. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s weird and unwelcome and I’m probably making a face when he goes on and asks a question I don’t really hear.

‘Meggan,’ I lament in an undertone, ‘where were you when Dad needed you?’

Ron’s cracked up laughing and I want to throw the ball right at his crotch but I know what’ll happen. All out war and Hermione (and probably Malfoy) telling us off for playing rough with the children. Instead, I just ask Malfoy to repeat his question.

‘I said,’ he huffs, ‘when are we all going to bed?’

‘Might wanna take us on a date first, Malfoy, jeez.’ Ron grins at his own joke, but at least he  _ is _ joking and not just scowling.

‘You really want me to take your girlfriend out on a proper date, Weasley? You might never get her back.’

‘Nah, Malfoy, I’d just send my sister in to steal her back from you. She tells me she’s pretty good at that.’

‘Can I please have an opinion on who I’m supposedly dating?’ Hermione cuts in before Malfoy can retaliate. ‘I’m not a commodity.’

‘I agree, Granger, my apologies,’ Malfoy concedes immediately, and Ron rolls his eyes. I’d say he needed to be more careful but I think Hermione enjoys bossing Ron around too much to ever chuck him for someone like Malfoy, who would not, never in a million years, put up with her shit. ‘So do we have a time estimate?’

‘You’re awfully keen, it’s only seven thirty.’

‘I only ask because I have some homework to do and I don’t want to inconvenience you by being up too late,’ he snaps. ‘I expect we’re all tired.’

‘That’s very considerate, Draco, thank you,’ Hermione says. ‘Is eight thirty reasonable?’

‘Perfect, thank you,’ he pauses, and it’s almost unnoticeable. ‘Hermione.’ So they’re on first names now. Weird.

‘Do we have homework?’ Ron hisses at me.

‘No, it’s for Arithmancy,’ Malfoy— _ Draco _ —cuts in. ‘Have you done yours?’ he asks Hermione.

‘Of course,’ she says, nose back in her book. ‘Let me know if you need any help with question eight — it’s worded very ambiguously.’

‘Typical Vector,’ he sighs. ‘Syntax like a sphinx.’

‘She’s a difficult woman to endure, isn’t she? Rather flighty considering her field of expertise.’

‘She acts like an Astronomer, it’s disgusting.’

‘Maybe she’s in love with one,’ Hermione smirks and lifts her head to raise a suggestive eyebrow.

Malfoy looks freshly scandalised. ‘No… really?’

‘You didn’t notice?’ Hermione is rarely one to gossip, but apparently she’d have been able to give Lavender a run for her money. This is the first I’ve heard of any of it. Teachers. Yuck.

‘I didn’t think to look,’ Malfoy admits.

‘How very heteronormative of you.’ Hermione’s voice is light, teasing, and I wonder if she’s noticed Malfoy’s not straight either.

‘Not something I get accused of often, by those who know me.’ He returns her smirk, and it’s like they’re having a conversation without saying normal human phrases. Typical.

‘Really?’

‘I would’ve thought you knew, considering the company you keep?’

‘I did,’ she smiles. ‘I just didn’t expect you to tell me.’

‘I aim to exceed expectations.’

‘I aim for the nose.’

‘I will remember that,’ he huffs a laugh. ‘Not that I’d forgotten.’

‘Best you don’t, considering the company you keep. Lately.’

‘Noted.’

‘Good.’ Hermione’s attention falls back to her book again. ‘See you later.’

‘What was that about?’ Ron asks, brow furrowing. I have an inkling, but it’s not an inkling I want to examine so I plead ignorance.

‘Haven’t the foggiest.’

*

Everything’s fine until about half past eleven. We’d all fallen asleep pretty swiftly, egg babies included, but I feel like I’ve had half as much sleep as I need when something wakes me and I hear the door handle squeak and a sliver of light appears in the corner. There’s a whisper and a grumble and the swish of dressing gowns and then the decisive  _ doof _ of the door closing.

‘Wha’ happened?’ I ask the moonlit room, wondering who’s gone and who’s still here, if anyone.

‘Your friends had to leave,’ Malfoy whispers from behind me.

‘Why?’

‘Apparently we were being too noisy.’

‘I was asleep.’

_ ‘I _ was  _ not. _ And neither were they. And they were… you know,’ he pauses, uncomfortable. ‘Doing things. Things it’s impolite to do in company. Even in a boarding school.’

I sigh. ‘They said they wouldn’t.’

‘They lied.’

I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that Hermione and Ron were getting off a couple metres away, or the fact I slept through it. What if it’s happened before? What if it’s a thing they do?  _ Hey, babe, lets fuck next to Harry again, the thrill of getting caught really gets me going…  _

Though. Wait. If...

‘Hang on,’ I say, rolling to face him. ‘Why did they leave if they were the ones making… You know, noises?’

Malfoy looks up at the drapery over my bed, avoiding my eye. ‘I may have made some of my own. To prove a point.’

‘Malfoy,’ I say, fumbling under my pillow for my wand, because the situation can’t possibly look this mad in proper light. ‘Did you make pretend sex noises to scare them off?’

‘No.’

‘Did you make  _ real _ sex noises to scare them off?’ Fucking hell, what if they were all going at it while I was sleeping?

‘No... I made fake noises so  _ they’d _ stop making noises, but they didn’t, they acted all outraged and Weasley had a small fit, and Granger decided they should go. I imagine, now, Millicent’s going to have to deal with them and their... illicit tomfoolery.’

His word choice is ninety-nine percent normal and one percent Victorian spinster. ‘So… do my two best friends think I was a part of this?’

‘Maybe,’ he smirks. ‘Now you don’t need to come out to them, at least. I helped.’

‘They already knew, you— you  _ nutcase. _ I didn’t need your “help”.’ I give up on propping myself upright and flop back on my pillow. ‘Just because I’m not out yet, doesn’t mean  _ no one _ knows I’m bi.’

‘Hold on. You were serious? The thing you said about Charlie wasn’t just you taking the piss?’

‘Yes, I’m serious. And bi. Card-carrying member, now, thank you. All done. Hello, I’m Harry Potter and I’m bisexual, etcetera. Not that it’s any of your business.’

He’s quiet for a moment. ‘We are sharing a bed, it’s sort of my business.’

‘Then fuck off and sleep over there.’ I point across the room at Ron’s vacated bed.

‘In their  _ fluids?’ _ he scoffs. ‘No thanks.’

‘Fine then, I will,’ I say, and whip the covers right off, just to annoy him, letting all the cold air in…

...Just as a whimper comes from the bedside and we both freeze.

‘Fuck,’ I breathe, realising too late that we’ve both got a bit loud and annoyed and that I had just definitely forgotten about Meggan even existing. Somehow the presence of Malfoy in my bed wasn’t enough for me to remember that one small detail.

‘I’ll settle her, you go to sleep,’ he sighs.

It’s the least he can do. Dickhead. I slide Ron’s curtains open, take a deep, calming breath... and immediately close them. Cock-bollocking-arse-cunts. I turn back to my own bed and clamber over Malfoy with no consideration for where my knees are. They can all fuck off. All the people.

_ ‘Ow. _ What now?’

‘Nothing,’ I snap. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Clearly that’s a fabrication, if the quickly developing bruise on my shin is anything to go by.’ 

My god, he’s so annoying. ‘Fine. I’m tired. I’m failing fucking  _ Charms. _ That bed smells of sex. Everyone is getting laid but me, including my ex-girlfriend, and now my two best friends think I’m shagging  _ you.’ _

‘You wish you were shagging me.’ 

I don’t know where he gets his confidence. Well. Maybe I do. ‘Hardly.’

‘You could be doing a lot worse.’

‘I’m sure that’s what Blaise thought before he left you.’

There’s a squeak from behind me, where he’s still settling Meggan, and this can’t be helping but I don’t care. It feels a lot like it’s his fault. 

And then he has the gall to ask me, ‘Are you ever not horrible?’

I squawk,  _ ‘Me?!’ _ without thinking of volume, I’m so enraged at his utter lack of self awareness. I spin around in a flurry of covers and he’s sitting up scowling at me, and we have one whole second to seethe at each other before it all goes to hell.

We’ve gone too far, gotten too riled up, and Meggan is awake and screaming before we have a chance to realise what we’re doing. Just how loud we are. How much emotion is in the room, thick and regrettable and intoxicating none-the-less. I want to punch him and smother him and yell at him over the screams of our fake child.

‘Could you maybe calm the fuck down?’ he says as he scoots his arse up the bed and reaches to lift Meggan out of her little purple cot. ‘Shhh, Petal, it’s okay.’ He holds her close and puts his mouth to her dome, whispering, his lips only just touching the golden surface.

‘Sorry,’ I say, and shift to lean back against the wall, finding the edge of the covers and pulling them over my legs ‘til I’m under and out of the cold. What a fucking night. I want a drink, a real one, or failing that, a cup of tea. ‘Got any alcohol?’ I ask him.

I expect him to shoot me a pompous glare, but he huffs a dry laugh and nods. ‘I do, actually, but you might not want it.’

‘I assure you, I do.’ Meggan is still crying but she’s losing steam now that she’s being held, and coddled, and nasty-dad-Harry isn’t shouting at her other dad anymore. ‘Is it in your bag?’ I nod at the leather overnight duffel he brought with him this time. The bag from which he’d pulled those black silk pyjamas and fluffy woollen socks, and a green-cased pillow with silver piping on the edge. Bloody Slytherin. Weirdly sweet, too well-dressed, and cutely-socked as he is.

‘It is,’ he says, ‘pass me my wand.’

He’s been sleeping on the wall side because it makes me claustrophobic when someone else is here and I slide my hand under his pillow and grab the first thing I feel there. It’s not a wand. The shape is actually startlingly familiar. I pull it out. It’s lube. Shit. I check, and all he’s done is put his own pillow on top of the pathetically thin one that was there, so I’ve just reached under what is essentially my own pillow and pulled out my own lube from lord knows when and now I’m holding it in my hand in front of a guy I admitted earlier today to finding  _ mildly _ physically attractive. Who is also one of the small number of guys in this castle who’s also into guys. I wonder if I secretly, probably, would rather like to have sex with him. Maybe this is how we get there. I’m feeling strangely bold. Sleep deprivation and all that.

‘Care to explain this?’ I ask, holding it up. ‘Doesn’t look much like a wand.’

He looks up and his expression flicks through confusion to disgust to mild outrage. ‘That is  _ not _ mine.’

‘Of course not, it’s just under your pillow. Silly me.’

‘It’s  _ your  _ bed.’

‘Yeah,’ I agree. ‘You’d think I’d remember storing lube in it, wouldn’t you?’

‘I don’t know, do you?’

‘Not remotely,’ I lie. Something’s coming back to me, involving a drunk ex-girlfriend and a weird experimental escapade. The sheets have been changed a bunch of times since though. The elves must have replaced it every time, exactly where they found it. Somewhere in the castle there’s a free elf who has too much insight into my sex life. Brilliant. Easier to ignore that, though, and pretend it isn’t mine. ‘Must be someone else’s.’

‘Sure,’ he says, layered with sarcasm. ‘That seems fair. Can’t imagine you’d need it anyway. Since you’ve had a girlfriend the whole year and they tend to be self-lubricating. No need for Wicked Willy’s Wand Polish.’ He sounds like he, rightfully, doesn’t believe a word of it. But he’s also wrong.

I almost say something, correct him, then realise he’s baiting me. Wanting me to retaliate with _“they’re_ _not always self-lubricating, not everywhere, and not always sufficiently”,_ because doing so would basically be admitting it _was_ mine. Instead, and maybe I can blame the sleep deprivation again, I say, ‘Of course, unless you’ve got an unreasonably large dick.’

‘Are you trying to tell me you’ve got a big dick, Potter? Really?’ I take note of the slight twitch of his mouth, the fact he won’t look at me.

‘No, I already said it wasn’t my lube.’

‘So, what, are you telling me  _ I’ve _ got an unreasonably large dick?’

‘No, you said it wasn’t yours either.’

‘So… a ghost hid lube in your bed,’ he says. ‘A ghost with an unreasonably large dick?’

‘Could’ve been Nearly Headless Dick?’

‘Oh my God, Potter, desist.’

‘The Grey Ladyboy? The Fat-dicked Friar? The Bloody Great Big Baron?’

‘You’re a walking fucking travesty. No respect for—’ He stops mid-sentence and closes his eyes, cheek twitching.

‘What?’

‘Peev-nis,’ he says, like he’s disappointed in himself but he has to let it out.

‘Big Boy Binns,’ I say.

‘It would explain why Myrtle’s been  _ Moaning _ all these years,’ and his serious facade breaks with a huff.

It’s in a fit of giggles, half-exhausted and clutching lube and our egg-baby, that I realise we might actually be friends. And as we settle down, Meggan merely grizzling in Malfoy’s arms now that we’re not angry, I reach under his pillow again and actually find his wand this time. It’s the same hawthorn one I used in the battle and it still feels right in my hand. Even after the cursory duel at the beginning of the year to return its allegiance to its rightful owner, it hums for me. Knows me. It’s nice to see it again.

‘Right, Potter, get ready to drink your personal problems,’ Malfoy says, and summons a bottle from his bag into my hands. It’s fucking GIN. Of all the spirits he could’ve brought, it had to be the one with the same fucking name as my ex-girlfriend. 

‘Gin?’ I ask him, withering.

‘I wasn’t anticipating sharing it with you, sorry.’

‘Couldn’t have been rum…?’

‘Blaise drank the rest of my Mount Gay, said it was his right as part of the queer community to imbibe the blood of Gay Christ or something. To be honest, I often didn’t listen when he talked.’

‘Oh?’

‘He’s really not very smart, Potter.  _ Really. _ I’m amazed Miss Weasley didn’t pick that up in Ancient Runes, since I believe that’s where they met.’

‘Maybe she wasn’t very smart, either.’

‘Well, she did break up with the Boy Who Might Have A Giant Cock.’

‘Let’s just have a drink and stop talking about my hypothetical dick, please.’

‘ _ Dick, please, _ indeed,’ he says, charming the cork free. ‘I swear I’ve never been this sexually bereft in my life.’

‘I can’t imagine what that’s like.’

‘Have a bit of gin, Potter, maybe it’ll bring back memories.’ 

‘Cold, wet and slightly painful, sure.’ I sniff at the open bottle. Smells like Mrs Figg’s knicker drawer. Old lady and herbs and nail polish remover.

‘You paint such a lovely picture.’

‘It was a lovely time.’

‘Seriously, though,’ he says. ‘Have you got any glasses for us to use? Tumblers? Paper cups? I don’t fancy swigging it from the bottle.’

‘You didn’t bring any with you?’

‘I’m not a walking wet bar,’ he says.

‘You could be a partially reclined wet bar.’

‘I could recline properly if you’d take the baby.’

‘Fine,’ I say and hold out my arms. ‘Give her here and transfigure us some fine goblets to drink our devil water from.’

He uses the glass from the recently emptied photo frames on my desk, and within a minute I find myself sitting up in bed with an egg-baby, two fingers of straight gin and my former-nemesis-turned-tentative-friend and it’s nearly midnight and I wonder if I’ll ever have a weirder Thursday ever again.

‘How many days has it been for you?’ he asks out of nowhere.

‘Since what? I last died? About nine months.’ I sip my gin and it’s horrible.

‘Sex, Potter, keep up.’ He’s actually reclined now, on my pillow, on my side of the bed, and I bet I’ll get back there and it’ll smell of him. Whatever that scent is that’s slightly myrrh and slightly lemony. He’s conjured a bendy straw from nothing and looks like a whimsical alcoholic.

‘Oh. About three weeks.’

He makes a sympathetic noise. ‘Almost one week. The morning of the night we all broke up.’ His hand lifts off his chest and waves around like a sea anemone, ‘Though, that depends on your definition. Maybe it was as long as three or four weeks before that. He got less… reciprocal, at some point.’ He goes quiet and I don’t think there’s anything to be said to that. ‘I wonder when they decided to leave us?’ he says. ‘When did they talk about it? What made it easy to decide on that one day, among all the other days?’

‘I think that seed was also planted about three weeks ago and I can take a very good guess at what triggered it.’ I haven’t told anyone any of the details and I had no intention of doing so. It doesn’t seem so weird of an idea here though. With him. ‘She had some very conventional heterosexual preferences and I did not.’

‘Shit.’ He looks sympathetic, like he’s sorry he fucking asked, but honestly it’s a relief to just tell someone. 

Meggan is quiet in my arms now and I think about putting her back in her cot, but it’s a comfort to have something to hold on to. I don’t miss the sex with Gin as much as I miss her hugs. She made me feel significantly less… fucked up. Lonely. Broken. Of course now, thinking of her has the opposite effect. I tip back my glass and get rid of the contents in the most efficient way possible — quickly and without caring how horrid it tastes.

‘Another?’ I suggest.

‘Sure, let me put Meggsy back in her cot,’ he says, and lets his glass hover in the air while he reaches to take her from my lap. She makes a sleepy burble and then is silent. I don’t really want to let her go. ‘Jesus, Potter, stop moping. I can’t have you all cuddly and drunk, holding the baby. It’s not safe.’

‘I’m not drunk,’ I protest, and it’s true, I’ve been practicing my drinking and this is far, far from drunk. 

‘Just cuddly, then?’

‘I... miss the closeness,’ I say, and it’s hard and horrible to squeeze the words out but I hope it’ll feel lighter afterwards. Confession is meant to do that. That’s what my therapist said, anyway.

He sighs. Maybe he’s about to tell me to  _ “stop being so maudlin, Potter” _ or maybe just to shut up with my stupid first-world problems. Instead, he says, ‘I miss not being judged for my upbringing.’

Now it’s my turn to sigh. We  _ are _ maudlin. ‘If it helps any, I decided a few minutes ago that we’re probably friends.’

‘Probably?’

‘It seemed hasty to decide without your input.’

‘I asked you to be my friend when we were eleven, I think you can assume acquiescence,’ he says and downs his second gin in one wet mouthful.

‘You’ve changed a bit since then.’

‘I’d hope so. Shall we hug on it, then?’ When I look at him he’s smirking, teasing me. Meggan is safely tucked up in her bed and he’s laying on his side, facing me, propped up on his elbow. He’s very long. ‘Since you miss the closeness.’

‘Let’s not. I wouldn’t want you to get fresh with me, since you’re apparently so very  _ sexually bereft. _ We don’t need both beds stinking of sex.’ I don’t know if this is too far — to take his bantering comment and push it somewhere else.

‘If we’re going to talk needs Potter, you better believe sex is on the list.’ Clearly he’s not bothered by it if his appraising gaze is anything to go by. He pours us both another drink and I wonder if maybe I was a little hasty in my boldness. It’s one thing to tease him about lube but having him look at me like that makes it a bit too real.

‘Yeah, well. Maybe you should deal with that, it’s making you sleazy,’ I say.

‘Here? Now?’ He lets his free hand rest on his waistband, eyebrow arched, questioning.

‘I’m not going to help you,’ I say.

‘Funny that’s where your head went,’ he smirks, inclining his head toward Ron’s empty bed. ‘I was just going to suggest I pop over there for a minute, lock the curtains, cast a Muffliato.’

‘Only one minute?’ I mock, trying to divert his attention. ‘It  _ has _ been a while, hasn’t it?’

‘I told you it had.’

He did, it’s true. Though how much experience does a guy need to have for a  _ week _ to be a  _ long time? _ Why then, can I not just let it go? Stop talking about wanking while we’re alone together in my bed? ‘Can’t you like… regularly let off some steam yourself?’ I’m very, very aware that I’m leading this conversation somewhere dubious, but it’s like an itch. A scab to pick at. ‘At times other than now, preferably?’

‘I had been, but I’ve been  _ here _ for three nights now. Though, apparently, you would’ve slept through it anyhow. I’ve been unnecessarily deprived.’

‘What about in the shower?’

‘I— no. Not standing up.’ He’s staring straight up into the deep purple hangings of my bed, now, throat exposed. The black of his shirt is darkness itself, absorbing light, such a stark contrast to his pale skin.

‘Dare I ask?’

‘You can try.’

I hold the question in for as long as I can, sipping my drink. ‘Does it not work, if you’re standing up?’

‘Hmm. No...’ he takes a mouthful and I think that might be all he says, until, ‘It works too well,’ he adds. His mouth twists into a reluctant smile. ‘I tend to fall over.’

I snort into my gin. Cough a little. I’m not choking, exactly, but the thought of him falling over in the shower — just flat-out collapsing while come sprays everywhere — is just the right side of ridiculous. ‘How many times has this happened and why aren’t there pictures?’

‘I can’t guarantee there aren’t, but if I could, I wouldn’t show you, you hideous thing. I bare my soul and you laugh like a lunatic.’

‘Prude.’

‘Perv.’

‘Sometimes.’

‘No surprises there.’ He gives me a look. ‘You’ve obviously been present for more than one of their amorous interludes and slept right through it. Or pretended to.’

‘I fucking hope not.’

‘I was making an awful lot of very explicit noises and you were right next to me, asleep. Oblivious.’

‘I’m  _ tired.' _

‘I literally moaned your name, loud, repeatedly and with an enthusiasm befitting the most devious acts.’ He sips his gin. ‘I was half afraid you’d wake up and think I was very vividly dreaming about you.’

‘Well,’ I take a fortifying sip myself. ‘I’m flattered you faked enjoying it, considering I’d have no idea what I was doing.’

‘What?’ He looks across at me. ‘Charlie Weasley didn’t give you a proper run through? Or are you just a bit slow on the uptake?’

I sigh. As much as I want to talk about it, it’s still hard to say the words out loud. And to him, lying there, looking like my mortal enemy but in silk pyjamas and with his hair mussed. ‘We  _ kissed. _ Once. A lot, but—’ I squirm. ‘Technically, just on the one occasion.’

‘That’s it? That’s what, presumably, confirmed your gay meanderings?’

How do I explain the fact I pretty much already knew? That, looking back, there was no way on this earth I was straight and that the second Gin asked if I was attracted to guys as well, it was immediately the most sense that life had ever made. That I probably didn’t need to kiss Charlie at all, but that there was also no way I’d pass that up. Not right then, with the need to experiment lighting a fire in my pants and whole-hearted permission from my actual girlfriend. 

I think she was hoping it was a phase, something I could get out of my system. I think she thought it being Charlie would somehow put me off and the awkwardness she anticipated would throw an unflattering light on men in general, for me. Because he was like family, and older, and not as classically handsome as Bill. But Charlie was a gift. A hot, heavy, teasing gift. And I was an 18 year old boy with cock on the brain and he was a swarthy sex-god who could lift me with one arm and smelled like saltpetre. He was something I’d not fully recovered from and likely one of the reasons Gin and I broke up. 

‘There was some light… I dunno…’ I don’t want to use the word  _ humping. _ ‘Rubbing? I suppose? How strong is this gin?’

‘It’s top shelf and distilled with magic, so... very. Don’t change the subject. Tell me about this alleged  _ rubbing.' _

‘Er, no.’ Not if I want to avoid getting a massive, raging hard-on. 

‘I can tell you the pathetic details of my own self-discovery, if it eases your mind?’ he offers. ‘I know you Gryffindors like things to be  _ fair _ . Reciprocal and all that.’

‘Yes, apparently you haven’t had enough  _ reciprocity _ lately.’ I do not need him telling me stories of him getting off with anyone else I know and can vividly picture, either, since we’re avoiding erections.

‘Potter, stop flirting with me with these big words and tell me about the time you frotted the Man Who Loved Dragons A Sufficient Amount.’

No, never. I distract him with feigned idiocy. ‘Frotted?’

‘Yes, frotted. Past tense of the act of frottage. Dry-humping. Rutting. Call it what you will, I need to hear about it. I’m sad and alone and living vicariously through your past self.’

‘There’s nothing to tell. It was... enough to  _ know. _ But I was dating his sister and not really at liberty to experiment.’ Tiny bit of a lie. I may have come spectacularly in my pants.

‘You tiny, innocent, flower petal.’

I can let him believe that. ‘Fuck off.’

‘Be nice, I’m sure no one else wants to talk to you about this. Weasley surely wouldn’t want to know a single deviant thing about your dalliances with both his brother and sister. Granger would get her moral knickers in a twist even knowing it happened, would she not?’

‘Probably.’ He’s right, of course. ‘But it — it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. Ginny knew, so it wasn’t particularly immoral in that sense.’

‘She  _ knew. _ That you were kissing  _ her brother? _ Did she know he was humping your leg?’

‘He didn’t—’ Another lie, he totally did. ‘And yes, she knew. She— Well. We’d been having some problems and she asked if maybe there was something to it and suggested that maybe I made sure I didn’t completely prefer guys. If her and I were going to make a proper go of it, you know. I think she thought it would be worth it. That it would be better to find out then, than in twenty years when we had three kids and a mortgage and a growing chasm of resentment.’

‘She thought you were gay, while dating you?’

‘Yeah…’ I cringe at how it seems. ‘Fuck that sounds awful. I was— It was really soon after the war and I wasn’t really,  _ you know. _ In the mood, ever. And she, alternately, was trying to distract herself with  _ anything _ so she was always up for it, and she got to thinking that maybe there was something more to it than just, you know. Normal “my-friends-are-dead-so-I’m-a-bit-depressed” sort of stuff.’

‘Typical bloody woman,’ he says. ‘ _ You don’t wanna shag me so you must obviously be gay. _ It’s always all about how it relates to them.’ He sounds a little bitter. 

‘She wasn’t entirely wrong, to be fair.’

‘I expect you had some inkling before she sent you off to snog her exceptionally fit brother, though, correct?’

‘Some things bear testing.’

‘You barely tested anything, by the sounds of it.’ He takes a sip of his gin, his lips loose around the pink straw. ‘I can’t see why Charlie bothered.’

‘It was enough,’ I say. ‘And he was very supportive.’

‘I bet you aren’t even bi.’

The  _ fuck? _

‘I  _ am, _ how can—’

‘Come over here and prove it.’

_ Oh. _

‘I’m not going to kiss you to prove how gay I am.’

‘Then do it to prove how gay  _ I _ am.’

_ Wow. _

‘I’m not  _ questioning _ that.’

‘Neither am I, but I’m bored and gin-soaked, Potter, and woefully single and you’re just sitting there talking about how you made out with a guy who literally hangs out with dragons all day, and it’s more than a little… intriguing.’

‘Then go have a cold shower. We’re barely even friends, we can’t just—’ 

Can we? Is that a thing we can do? I— girls aren’t really into that, according to, well, everyone. It’s a guy thing, to want no-strings-attached sex. Or whatever. Do some guys just… do this sort of thing? Could I be one of those guys?

‘I assure you I could.’

Malfoy definitely appears to be trying to chat me up. ‘This is the weirdest night of my life.’

‘Technically, everyone thinks we are anyway,’ he says, and shrugs. His face is calm, his expression a picture of,  _ why not? _

‘No, they don’t.’

‘Weasley and Granger do,’ he points out, actually pointing at me with his drink hand, the gin sloshing up the side of the glass.

‘They won’t actually believe it.’ I hope that’s true, that they’ll believe me when I say I slept through the whole charade. I expect if they’ve fucked next to me before they’ll know it’s possible. 

‘If they won’t ever believe it, then what’s the harm?’ he says, like the only reason I might not want to jump him right now is the curious disapproval of my two best friends.

‘Fuck Thursdays, this is crazy.’ The tiny part of me that was curious about him has just run off and hid in the corner; this is too real, to open, too not-accidental.

‘Gin helps,’ he says and hands me the bottle.

‘Gin’s a bitch,’ I say, taking it and pouring us both another generous splash. 

‘She’d hate it if you actually enjoyed yourself, wouldn’t she?’

He needs to stop being quite so on the nose with his comments. It’s creepy how well he reads things. ‘You’re a menace.’

‘She probably expects you to mope around and pine after her. Wank into one of her old t-shirts and cry about how sad and lonely you are.’

‘Are you trying to chat me up or depress me?’

‘Perhaps neither. It’s late, we should turn in,’ he says and he peels himself off the mattress. ‘It’s been entertaining, Potter, but the booze is making me sleepy and you’re being very boring.’ And just like that, he slings his drink back and sets the glass on the bedside table, reaching for mine as well. It’s empty already, its contents burning a happy hole in my gut. 

What just happened? Had he been serious? Did he actually want to… And now I’m supposed to just, what? Sleep next to him? Continue raising our egg baby and making his breakfast and pretending like he didn’t just blatantly proposition me in my own bed, while we were uncommonly alone together, all soft and careless with alcohol and fatigue? 

He doesn’t even swap our pillows over, just plumps mine, arranging them just so before leaning over to check on Meggan. He settles back, smoothing the sheet over the edge of the duvet and burrowing down. I still haven’t moved from the wall. 

‘Are you coming, Potter?’ he says, and touches his wand where it sits on the bedside table.  _ ‘Nox _ ,’ he utters, and the room goes dark.

I barely know how to move like a person anymore, my body feels weird and  _ his _ body feels too close and too… possible. And he’s expecting me to sleep on his pillow. I wriggle into position, jerky and awkward like a half-drunk Great Dane trying to climb into a pillowcase. I slide further under the covers, hyper-aware of where my knees are and just how much space there is between us. 

His elbow encroaches on my space for a second and I wonder if we’ll just lie here all night, side by side, staring up at the ceiling, not touching. Then I feel the bed dip and he’s moving and my heart bangs in out of nowhere, assuming he’s going to kiss me in the dark and I won’t be prepared. He doesn’t, of course, he just rolls toward the baby and as my eyes adjust I realise I’m over here with nothing. A view of his aristocratic shoulders and the pale silver of his hair in the moonlight. And all these inches between my hands and him. And too much space to excuse an “accidental” touch. And why has this even happened? This morning he was merely conventionally good-looking and surprisingly inoffensive to spend time with. Then he goes and says one stupid thing and my whole outlook shifts. Why am I like this? Blind for an entire lifetime ‘til something clicks into place and then it’s all I can think about. 

Key examples: Sirius - I’d never thought of whether I had other family I could’ve been living with until he was there and I was instantly obsessed with him. Ginny - hanging off my every word for years and it never occurs to me to look at her ‘til Dean tries to suck her face off in front of me. Draco Fucking Malfoy - giant pain in the arse for our entire schooling 'til about two minutes ago when he says,  _ “come over here and prove it” _ and my entire body is suddenly like, YES, PLEASE. And then he laughs and says,  _ “we should turn in… you’re being very boring” _ and… then this. This. Lying in the dark staring at the line of his neck and knowing, somehow, what his arse would feel like pressed against my cock. I can guess what he’d fucking taste like. And there’s literally nothing stopping it from happening, but the fact that the whole thing scares the shit out of me.


	5. Whistle For Willie

**_Great Hall_ **

**_Breakfast_ **

**_Day 5_ **

Breakfast is the same as every other morning. Except that I’d woken up hard and forgotten he was there for a second. My usual practice of self-comfort was interrupted by a mild heart attack when my knuckles brushed his hip and I ended up staring into wide grey eyes with my fingers wrapped tight around my dick and both of us wondering what the fuck was happening. So breakfast is actually a little uncomfortable underneath the normal. At least Hermione and Ron have slept in and we don’t have to deal with their un-subtle eyebrow waggling and casual questioning of “how we slept”. At least I won’t have to lie about being a bit hungover, which should cover most of the evidence I didn’t sleep well.

‘How do you feel about baked beans?’ I ask, since it’s the first time they’ve been on offer since this whole routine started.

‘Negatively.’

‘Okay...’ I wonder if beans have become a metaphor.

‘Just a bacon roll will be fine.’ He sounds just as tired as I do, thankfully. I was beginning to worry that one midnight chat shouldn’t be enough to wipe me out, but it’s been days of not sleeping right by now. And maybe he’s right. Maybe I do need to get laid. De-stress.

‘Right. Bacon roll with mayo. Cool.’

‘Please.’ He pauses. ‘You seem weirder than usual this morning,’ he says. ‘Is it what we talked about last night?’

I just look at him, a pair of tongs in one hand and a soft bap, fresh from the oven, in the other. I bet his arse feels like this, pliant, warm. And I’m about to shove meat in it. Poetic or what?

‘I guess,’ I say. Since that’s probably less weird that telling him I almost accidentally had a wank beside him about twenty minutes ago.

‘Will you stop being weird soon or do we need to talk something out?’

‘I might be weird forever.’

‘That does seem more likely.’

He doesn’t try and make me talk again, just eats his bap with one hand and coddles our egg baby with the other. All morning, he pretends like nothing is wrong and I can tell he’s pretending because he doesn’t once look me in the eye.

He talks to Blaise in first period, which is weird, and Millicent is with them, grinning like a cat. I’d say it was a bad omen but I don’t know how things could possibly get more fucking weird than they are. Though it does make me wonder how I’d feel if Malfoy and Blaise became friends again while Gin and I still aren’t talking. I can’t even look at her without my gut turning over a little. It might be guilt. Shame, perhaps.

Hermione ends up answering the unasked question of what they were talking about. There are new living arrangements, apparently. Not new in the sense that Draco’s going to be vacating my room anytime soon — quite the opposite. He’s moving in with me. Ron is moving in with Hermione and Millicent is taking Draco’s place in with Blaise. Just for the duration of the assignment, Hermione assures me. Not permanently. And  _ “don’t mention it to anyone, it’s not exactly allowed, the mixed gender thing.” _ She swears she’d not be breaking the rule herself, but really,  _ “why is there one rule for the straight students and another for everyone else?” _ She insists that she’ll take it seriously when all the bisexuals (myself included) are locked up by themselves in case they accidentally shag someone, since that seems to be the driving force behind the typical gender segregation. I’m not convinced that’s the entire reason she’s going along with it, but I’m hardly going to argue with her. Not now.

Not when I’m still entertaining the idea of temptation and Draco Malfoy and the thrill of illicit, no-strings getting off. Not when he still manages to look so good on just as little sleep as I’ve had. Not when his arse has taken on new meaning after last night. When his hands are suddenly a thing that would be better off wrapped around my dick, his mouth too empty without my tongue. His voice too controlled, too not-breathy and too not-wrecked, with entirely too little shouting my name as he comes harder than he ever has in his life. Not that I’m getting carried away.

I don’t say much during class, stuck as I am in my head, and he scolds me again for being boring and takes Meggan from me so he has “someone to talk to”. I’ve been replaced by a fake egg baby who only makes seven different sounds, all of them dependent on how shit I feel. We walk to morning tea together and I imagine us stealing back to our room and fucking instead of sitting down to scones and a bracing cup of earl grey. No such luck. Maybe I could suggest it. Apparently  _ he’s _ allowed to suggest things.

We sit at the Gryffindor table with Ron and Hermione, one of whom has accepted Malfoy’s constant presence and one of whom is Ron. Hermione and Malfoy are nattering about Arithmancy again for some reason and I wonder how he can dare call me boring when he’s literally talking about theoretical numbers right now.

When I look up at Ron so we can bond over a blokey sort of eye-roll, he’s glaring already at something over my shoulder, which turns out to be his sister and the new love of her life. For some reason, probably stupidity, they’re coming to sit at the Gryffindor table as well, when normally Malfoy’s presence has been enough to keep Blaise, at least, at bay. There’s another one of Ginny’s friends with them, someone I don’t really know but who seems to be hanging on Blaise’s every word, more even than Ginny is herself.

‘And so now I’m stuck with a  _ lesbian _ for a roommate,’ he finishes as they approach, loud enough for us to hear. He seems suddenly to be an even bigger wanker than I thought he was. My appreciation for Millicent goes up a notch for putting up with his shit and not decking him. Though I’m betting she might’ve done that too. Or might do in the future. Or at least should.

‘And what’s wrong with being a lesbian?’ Hermione says, nice and clear, and half of Gryffindor falls silent, the hush permeating the adjacent Hufflepuffs as well. 

‘Well, nothing, you know, of course—’ Blaise blusters and Gin is looking at him like he’s the very nastiest potion ingredient and I feel a sudden thrill at the thought of what might be about to happen.

‘If there’s nothing the matter with it,’ Ginny says then, her voice a carefully controlled chain of dynamite — it might go off, or you might get away, but the odds are definitely not in your favour. ‘You’ll need to explain your tone, because I’m quite confused.’ 

‘My room smells like  _ sandalwood _ and  _ patchouli _ and everything is  _ plaid,' _ Blaise whines, foolishly thinking that the truth, and not simpering apology, is the right course of action. ‘She has moccasin slippers and sensible flannel pyjamas and books about politics and sex and there’s a bloody great locked chest under her bed that I expect isn’t for her fucking  _ diary _ if you know what I mean. She’s the worst kind of girl and I hate it.’

‘You mean,’ Ron starts, and I’m all ears, because Ron’s not the most sensitive soul but he’s Charlie’s biggest supporter, and surely he won’t say anything too— ‘she’s the kind of girl who doesn’t fancy you?’ Oh wow. Call the paramedics. Blaise got  _ burned. _

‘Well, come on, old chap, that’s not quite—’ Blaise looks dreadfully uncomfortable and I’m drinking in every second of my ex-girlfriend scowling at him in disbelief.  _ Yes, Ginevra, this is the shithead you left me for. _

‘Blaise?’ Parvati puts on her best innocent viper voice. ‘Would the best sort of girl smell of cupcakes and lubricant and wear frivolous see-through nighties and have magazines about make-up and tips on how to please a man?’

Everyone at our end of the table is staring at him now. This is fantastic.

‘Now, now, it’s not that—’

‘Blaise, are you upset that lesbians don’t have any use for you?’ Ron asks, and this is why he’s my best friend. Relentless and righteous.

‘Do you think any of  _ us _ don’t have flannel pyjamas?’ Hermione asks, right on the tail of Ron’s question, starting everyone in on a barrage of subtle, scathing mockery.

‘It’s winter; I’m all about flannel and moccasin slippers, does that make me gay?’

‘Don’t tell Blaise, here, or he’ll never date you.’

‘He wouldn’t date me either, I smell like wood chips.’

‘Yes, how very unladylike of you, you poor thing.’

‘Well, look here, I—’ Blaise starts to look a bit worried and it’s well past time for that.

‘No, mate,’ Ron shakes his head, a pitying smile on his face. ‘Just shut up.’

‘But I—’

‘Best you go, really,’ Gin says, and pats him on the arm. He looks at her like he doesn’t understand why she’s suddenly turned on him.

‘Very well,’ he says, and wanders off, bewildered, over toward the Slytherin table.

There’s a general muttering as people take the piss out of him, not quite sure how he’s made it this far in life without being set on fire.

Above the noise, Parvati asks, ‘So is Millicent single, then?’

Several interested pairs of eyes flick to Malfoy and wait. ‘I wouldn’t ever, in a million years, speak for her,’ he says. ‘She is her own woman and all enquiries regarding her personal life should go through her.’ He takes another bite of scone and fixes his eyes on his plate ‘til everyone goes back to their own food. Only Parvati is left distracted, staring across the room at the Slytherin table.

*

The rest of the day passes in a tired blur. Meggan is grizzly almost constantly and it’s probably my fault. I want nothing but to sink back into bed, but every time I think of it, I remember I’ll be there next to Malfoy and I’m assaulted with mental images of him flushed and messy and gasping and I feel immediately more aware of my own body. Skittish. There’s an underlying knowledge that it’s not so far-fetched that makes it all the more dangerous to think about. It’s not theoretical, it’s an actual choice I can make and I don’t know if it’s a path we should go down. I don’t know if that’s something I want. I’ve never really had anything casual and finding out I don’t like it while we’re being forced to room together would be awkward.

That said... Finding out it’s good while we’re secretly rooming together and guaranteed some privacy would be brilliant.

‘What are you thinking about, Potter? You look confused.’ Millicent interrupts a new set of mental images. ‘Are you not sleeping?’ She’s stopped eating her dinner to stare at me, fork held loosely in her hand.

‘Not a lot,’ I admit, hoping she’ll forget she asked a question. ‘You?’

‘I dropped my egg-child for a reason. I sleep peacefully.’

‘Even in the same room as Blaise?’ Draco asks. ‘Or will you have to drop him down the stairs too? I don’t mind, you do what you need to do.’

‘I think I’ll enjoy torturing him much more, you know,’ she says and lets us in on her plans to annoy the living hell out of him. The patchouli, it turns out, was a torture device and not a personal preference. She has a charm so she can’t smell it herself. I find it all so dramatic I forget about my own problems for a moment. It’s the mention of  _ “leaving lube lying around just to confuse him”,  _ that reminds me of my own rooming arrangements. 

She spots him and Ginny leaving the Gryffindor table toward the end of dessert and leaps out of her seat, scampering away with a quick farewell, to ruin their chances of being alone in the room. I find myself liking Millicent more and more. Maybe I should ask her what she thinks of Parvati.

‘Meggan’s been in a bit of a mood today,’ Draco says, just as I’m wondering what lesbians get up to in their own time. ‘Did you notice?’ I get the feeling he was waiting ‘til we were alone to mention it. Which doesn’t bode well for my private thoughts staying private.

‘Oh. Yeah, I—’

He puts his fork down but keeps his eye on his plate. ‘I think it’s because you’re a bit out of sorts and I think that’s maybe my fault and I should apologise.’

‘Oh.’

‘I realize I might be more comfortable with… things… than you’re ready for. Considering. You know. Your level of experience.’

‘Right.’

‘So. I’m sorry. I’ve resolved to be a little more discreet about my… ideas.’

‘Okay.’

‘But I want something from you, too. Could you just  _ tell me _ next time if I’ve pissed you off? So we can deal with it and not have our daughter be a cranky little madam all day?’

‘I’m not pissed off.’

‘You seem pissed off.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Care to explain, then, why you’re so quiet and you won’t look at me? And why every time I look at you, you seem to be trying to scowl your own eyebrows off?’

I’d obviously rather not. Not at the Slytherin table, anyway, where we could be overheard, or seen, or anything. ‘Not here,’ I say.

‘But you admit there is something bothering you?’

I sigh. ‘I’ve been thinking.’

‘That explains the pained expression.’

‘Can we just,’ I wave my hand toward the large double doors, ‘like, go?’

‘Fine,’ he says, and stands, Meggan tucked into his side. ‘Where are we going?’

I haven’t thought this far ahead. Hadn’t thought I’d have to say anything. We can’t go outside, it’s freezing. We can’t go to the library because it’ll be full of people soon, and we can’t go back to the eighth year suite because seven o’clock is a bit early to be turning in and we’d probably get interrupted. That leaves a bunch of shady alcoves that’ll give absolutely the wrong idea, and some empty classrooms that might ruin whatever mood there might’ve been. ‘I don’t know. Where do you go when you want a private conversation?’

He looks at me with his eyebrows raised and I realize we both know a place but that last time we were there it was on fire. And that, with what I know of fiendfyre, it might well still be burning. 

‘Do you really want to go back there?’ he asks.

‘Have you? Since we came back?

‘No. I haven’t had any reason to. And,’ he takes a breath. ‘It’s still a bit fresh.’

‘We should check. See what it’s like?’

‘I— I’d rather not. But I have another idea. If you can be civil about my godfather.’

Snape? Is he suggesting a trip to the dungeons? ‘Of course. He—’ I pause, not wanting to go there again. ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s fine.’

*

Draco leads us through the usual corridors to the Potions classrooms and past them, past the blank wall I know leads to the Slytherin common room. He takes a narrow set of stairs on the left, and if he hadn’t disappeared up them I might not have even seen them. A  _ Notice-Me-Not, _ perhaps?

‘I came here a bit at the beginning of the year,’ he says, as we reach a heavy wooden door and he lays his palm on it. There’s a click and he pushes it open to reveal a small sitting room, complete with a leather lounge suite, a large desk against the far wall and a strangely gothic looking fireplace that flares to life as we enter the room. The whoosh and flash makes me flinch and I’m glad he’s in front of me and didn’t see. I probably look enough of a dick being moody and weird all day.

I notice doors either side of the desk, presumably bedroom and bathroom. The thought of Snape using either, and not just falling asleep with his eyes open in a coffin somewhere is bizarre. 

‘So what is it, Potter?’ he says, and sets about making a nest out of cushions on the armchair for Meggan, who is still grizzly but far quieter than she has been today. Am I calmer already, just from him apologising for coming on to me and making things terribly awkward? Even though I’m kind of okay with that now?

A particularly impulsive part of me wants to pin him down on this fancy black couch and rub my neglected cock against his. The image of it springs too readily into my head, the heat and the sound of his panting breath in my ear and the thrill of another male body under mine. One leaner, more like my own, than Charlie had been. He was almost too much, in a way, broad and hard-muscled and confident in everything he did, not that I minded at the time. It was certainly a nice way to invite me into this mad new world but I don’t think I’d ever have felt any sort of empowerment with him. Though mainly because I handled it like a twink and jizzed myself far too quickly.

Malfoy, though… only a little taller than me, same build, maybe slightly more experienced with guys, sure (and I bet he loved pointing that out). But, still, same age. It can’t be that far off even. Except… well. How’s it going to happen? How will I even suggest it?  _ Hey, former nemesis, about what you said last night, wanna bone? _ That’d go down well. I bet he’d go down well. Fuck. I’m getting ahead of myself.

‘I’m sorry I’ve been in a mood,’ I say to his back, because that’s probably easier.

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I am genuinely sorry if I made you uncomfortable.’ He turns from the chair, Meggan settled in a mound of Snape’s black velvet cushions. ‘And— I also wanted to apologise for something else. I remember being where you are now and it was shitty of me to question your sexuality for my own amusement.’

Oh.  _ Oh. _ He thought I was pissed off about  _ that  _ as well? About accusing me of not being bi?

‘I wasn’t upset about that, I kind of got the impression you were trying to goad me into— you know. And that you didn’t really mean it — the not being bi part.’

‘Okay. Good. What was the bit you were actually annoyed about?’

‘I wasn’t  _ annoyed,' _ I eye the couch, wonder if it’s too much to have this conversation sat side by side on a long leather surface in front of an open fire. It might almost seem romantic. ‘It was just a lot to deal with, having you… suggest things when I haven’t really… entertained the idea of someone else specifically, yet, really, after Ginny. Not seriously.’

‘But I’m guessing you did today? Entertain the idea.’

‘I… thought about it a bit.’

‘And?’ He cocks his head to the side, a smirk on his face.

‘It’s a bit risky, considering. I mean. We’re roomed together, we’re doing this assignment, it could get awkward and we’d still be stuck together all the time.’

‘I think you’re missing the point, Potter. If there’s not any strings, it doesn’t get awkward. And when you’re stuck rooming together, it’s kind of perfect.’ Yeah, okay, actually, I had suspected that, hadn’t I? ‘No one questions you spending the night in the same place. How do you think me and Blaise started off?’

‘You and Blaise ended disastrously. You hate him.’ Another thought occurs to me. ‘And didn’t he give you some sort of sex-disease, or did I completely misinterpret what you were doing in the hospital wing that night?’

‘Oh my god, Potter, I don’t have a sex disease. That stuff is an antidepressant, not some sort of dick-cream. Blaise violated the out clause, not my physical health. We had an agreement and he fucked it up.’

‘Out clause?’

‘For you and me, it’d be simple.’ He takes a step closer and I have to look away. ‘Once the assignment’s over and we go back to our own rooms, we stop doing whatever it is you’ve been thinking about all day.’ He takes another step. ‘Are you going to tell me what that was?’ 

‘Nope.’

‘What if I agree to it anyway? Whatever you want and no more? I won’t pressure you to do anything you don’t want to, just—’ He sighs, takes another step, and we’re toe to toe. ‘Whatever you want.’

He thinks me timid. Innocent. Inexperienced. Maybe he thinks I don’t know what I’m doing at all. I could play with that I suppose. Taunt him, tease. Draw it out for days, weeks. 

Nah. More fun to take him up on his offer now —  _ whatever you want. _

Or... maybe both. 

I keep my head down, reach a hand out toward his waist and find it with the tips of my fingers. I keep the touch hesitant, soft, teasing. Only he doesn’t  _ know _ I’m teasing him, has no idea, really. And I kind of like that. Something in me may always want to fuck with him a little. Put him on the back foot.

My gaze follows my other hand as it skims his chest, his shoulder, and very gently wraps around the back of his neck. When I look at his face, so close now, he’s closed his eyes and his mouth is soft, lips slightly parted. He dips his head as I slide my fingers into his hair, and he sighs. What a softie. I’m tempted to throw him down on the couch just to prove a point. Instead I lean in and fit my mouth around his top lip, gently still. Against all expectation our first kiss is kind of cute and innocent and totally at odds with who we are.

‘Malfoy,’ I whisper against his mouth.

‘Potter?’ he purrs back at me, his breath tickling my chin.

‘I’m not actually an innocent little flower petal.’

‘Good,’ he says and surges in, unleashed.

Our second kiss is a lot more like I’d have expected. More like us. Slightly too rough to be comfortable, a battle for dominance, almost. His teeth come out, digging into my bottom lip, his hands fisted in my jumper, pulling me closer. I twist my fingers further into his hair and it’s so soft I almost compliment him before I remember he’s a boy and he won’t care. A thrill shoots straight through me, at the lack of expectation, the way kissing  _ him _ doesn’t come with a commitment or a promise or a whole hoard of invested, well-meaning family. It’s just a kiss. A good one. Firm and sure, deep, kinda filthy already and it’s been only seconds. One of his hands sneaks ‘round and grabs at my arse, the other sliding up my chest to grip my collar, just a little too tight.

I must make some sort of sound, or perhaps I freeze for a second because he pulls away, panting slightly. My mouth tries to follow him and I’m left reaching into the space between us, needy. ‘You okay, there, Potter?’

‘No, I really need to sit down,’ I deadpan. ‘Knees a bit weak and all that. This is all a bit, you know. New.’ He’s scowling at my sarcasm like I’m trying to fight him. 

Then he spins us ‘round ‘til my calves are up against the couch and gives me a hard shove. He can’t be that annoyed though, because he follows me down, straddling my lap and coming in to kiss me again. Incidentally, this was one of Ginny’s favourite positions to fuck in. Convenient, considering we rarely had access to a bed during our time together, either in sixth, here at Hogwarts, or this past summer in her well-supervised house, or even here this year, since I could hardly bring her back to my room with her brother in the next bed. Much. Occasionally, yeah, we did, but mostly when he was out somewhere with Hermione. 

The times like this, though, they were good. That short skirt I liked, and the volume of the school robes, if we’d ever been caught it might’ve looked like we were just kissing. The difference when you’re with another guy is that you’re both wearing trousers. And there’s planning and preparation involved if you want to actually, you know. Do it like that. And right now, I just want to get off, so I scoot forward slightly and wrap my arms around Malfoy’s hips, pulling him down ‘til we’re pressed together. Grinding up slightly ‘til he gasps into my mouth. It’s familiar and different and  _ fuck. _

He catches on quick, rolling his hips in a rhythm ‘til my mouth is sore from kissing him and we’re both hard and breathless. I don’t know if it’s too soon for anything more, or if I could even make him stop and take any of our clothes off if I wanted too, but it’s not quite enough. I want more. Skin. I’ve missed skin. I tug his shirt out of his waistband and spread my hands over his ribs and he shivers. I explore, the rippled plane of his stomach, the firm curve of his hip, the soft smooth warmth of his back. When I pinch his nipples he groans into the kiss and my whole mouth vibrates with it. 

Resting my hands back on his hips I try and speed him up, but still. ‘Not enough,’ I say. ‘More.’ And more means more than I’ve done with another guy and he knows that, but he must decide to not be a patronising git and ask  _ “Are you sure,” _ and instead he reaches for my belt, takes my hand and puts it on his own, and dives in for another blinding kiss. 

We fumble for a while and once I have his zipper down, I’m not sure what we’re doing next and I stop and I wait. He doesn’t. His hand dives into my boxers and wraps tight around my dick and I feel it twitch. Okay. Right, so we’re doing that. It’s cool, can’t be harder than touching Gin for the first time, dicks are simple. I have one, I know how they work. Easy.

What I’m not ready for it how good he feels in my hand. The warmth, the weight, the silky smoothness and the way he thrusts into my fist the second my fingers wrap around him. He’s arched his back, curling over me so we both have room to manoeuvre, and he’s still kissing me. Softer now, a slide of lips, a swipe of tongue, constant panting breath. 

He adds a twist and I thrust up into his hand without meaning to and he purrs. I speed up my hand, pushing him faster and he starts to make the sweetest little sounds, not really a gasp, or a moan, just a sound. His hand is slack on mine for a second before he squeezes and picks up his own pace, fancy twist gone, just determined to keep up. It gets erratic, and we’re breathing too hard to even kiss anymore, our heads together, temple to temple, and fuck me if this isn’t the best use of a Friday evening, ever. I can’t help thrusting up into his fist and I won’t last much longer doing that. He’s doing the same, gasping in my ear, and when I look down and see us both there, my cock in his hand and his in mine, I lose it completely, frantically trying to bring him down with me. But the sight of my own hand around him is too much and I feel the prickle of impending orgasm warm my blood, my eyes fixed on his cock and my wrist aching as I convulse under him, once, before he works in a twist again and I’m falling apart in his hand, my come covering his pale fingers. I go slack.

_ ‘Fuck, Potter,’ _ he hisses as he clamps that hand around mine, tightening on his dick as he pumps into my fist. I can’t help watching and nearly get an eyeful when he comes, but it only hits my lip, my chin, and probably my shirt. Definitely my purple eighth year tie, now dotted with cream, I see as I look down at my chest. He tilts my face back up though and wipes at my chin, licking the drop on my lip into my mouth. It’s not a wholly unpleasant taste. ‘Not bad,’ he says, pulling back. 

‘Yeah,’ I say, still trying to get my breath back.

Behind him on the chair, Meggan makes a happy cooing sound and we realise what we’ve done. Thank Merlin she doesn’t have eyes.

‘See,’ he says, and backs up off me, ‘even the baby thinks it’s a good idea.’

‘I’m a bit dubious about taking sex advice from an egg.’

‘Well, then take it from me,’ he says, and waves his wand at my lap, the tickle of a cleaning charm in its wake. ‘That was a very good idea.’


	6. The Poky Little Puppy

**_Eighth Year Suite, Harry’s Room_ **

**_Evening_ **

**_Day 5_ **

The same night, in our room, we have another go at it. In my bed this time, of course, and without the restrictions of all our clothes. Pyjamas are an easier beast to tame, they’re elasticated, with no rough zips and a convenient opening at the front. They’re also thinner and every tiny bump, every press of flesh is that much more to feel. We barely make it out of them before we’re spilling ourselves all over each other and Meggan is gurgling happily in her tiny cot. 

Saturday morning I wake to a hard cock pressed into my back and the day only gets better. We have only a small amount of homework, which Hermione insists we do immediately after breakfast, and I’m still so relaxed from our pre-breakfast foray into intergluteal sex, that I just go along with it and it only takes an hour. Malfoy sits across from me, his foot resting against my ankle and it feels like a promise for more to come, but it also goes against what I had expected for this arrangement, for all affection to be restricted to the times we’re properly alone. 

Our group visit to Hogsmeade is littered with this same confusion. He’s the same, mostly, and I wonder how much of him was flirting with me earlier and I didn’t notice. He teases, nudges at my shoulder every time I get lost in thought, pulling me back to him and Meggan with a sly observation about the Granger-Weasleys, his hand always somewhere, holding me in place while he whispers discreetly in my ear. Did he always touch me this much?

He buys Meggan ridiculous things, and, very sensibly, a front-pack baby carrier so we can both have our hands free. The cashmere blanket is a bit much, though, considering she can’t even feel how beautifully soft it is, and the tiny Slytherin green hat falls to the ground as soon as the sticking charm wears off, which is often. (The layers of enchantment already on the egg seem reluctant to accept anything more and we almost lose it completely twice.) He also buys a pile of picture books, one with dragons and one about a witch called Meg and her cat, Mog. He even buys us both tea mugs; his says ‘Dad’s Taxi’ and mine, ‘#1 Daddy’, which is a bit borderline and he smirks at me while the cashier is ringing it up, daring me to point out the obvious double entendre, even though that’s very much not part of our dynamic. The  _ ‘Let’s go, Darling,’ _ he throws me as we leave the shop makes me wonder if he’d like it to be. 

After a few hours even Hermione starts to notice something and she pounces the second he goes to the loo while Ron’s at the bar ordering our food.

‘You two seem very cosy,’ she says, and the look on her face makes it an accusation. 

‘We’re friends, I guess,’ I say, since that in itself is probably a big enough declaration to appease her, possibly even bigger than the truth since it doesn’t have a built-in expiry date.

‘Since when?’

‘Since we managed to spend time together and no one got hexed.’

‘That’s your minimum requirement for friendship these days? It’s a wonder you aren’t inundated with social invitations.’

‘I’m too tired for social invitations,’ I say and she looks dubiously at a very happy Meggan, strapped to my front.  _ ‘She’s _ fine. It’s just. I’m constantly with Malfoy, every minute except for when he’s in Runes and Arithmancy with you, and it’s exhausting having to be  _ on _ all the time. You know what it was like camping last year, never having any time to myself? And I  _ like _ you guys.’

‘So you’re friends with him but you don’t like him?’

‘I— I mean, he’s  _ fine. _ But he’s not you,’ I say, hoping to flatter her to distraction.

‘I’d hope not, after what you were up to the other night.’

_ Shit. _

I’d forgotten about the fake hook up underneath all the secret real ones. She’d let it drag out for long enough I’d dropped my guard, as she’s prone to doing. Wily cow.

Ron arrives back at the table just in time to hear me fumble a retaliation. ‘That wasn’t— I was  _ asleep. _ Draco was just trying to get  _ you guys _ to stop what  _ you _ were doing.’

She has her mouth open to retaliate before I finish what I’m saying, and when I do, she snaps it shut, blushing, just as Ron cracks up laughing. He’s a terrible friend, but at least it doesn’t look like he thought Malfoy and I were actually doing anything.

‘Ron,’ Hermione says, steering the conversation away from their indiscretions. ‘Don’t you think Harry and Draco make a good couple? You know, as parents.’

‘I guess, but we’re still going to win this, aren’t we?’ he says and throws his arm around her and Leda.

‘I don’t know, they’re definitely keeping the bar high.’

‘Yeah, but,’ Ron starts, and as Draco sits back down beside me, his knees casually spreading ‘til we’re touching under the table. Ron rattles off a list of strategic predictions of why all the other teams are going to lose to them. When he comes to us, he says that, yes, we are doing well, _ “but think about it, it’ll be a real couple that wins, won’t it? Because they’re going to stay focused and they have a real reason to want to see it through. All you random pairings are just going to get bored and careless and you’re going to slip up.” _

Draco smirks but doesn’t argue, just slings his arm around the back of my chair and leans over to his egg-daughter to pat her on the head. 

‘Don’t you listen to the nasty man, Meggan, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’

And I realise, he’s right. For the first time in my life, Draco Malfoy knows more about what’s going on with me than Ron does, and it doesn’t feel that good. 

I think about mentioning it later as we’re tucking Meggan in for the night and Draco is singing some ridiculously dorky-sounding French lullaby. When I do, he counters with a declaration that maybe Ron wouldn’t want to know what we were getting up to, before grabbing my hand and loosely holding it against the front of his pyjamas. He goes on about all the many reasons this might be better kept a secret, gently swaying his hips side to side, his cock hardening against my knuckles. 

His reputation, mine, the assignment and our sleeping arrangements. Neither me nor him being out yet, the fact that it’s not anyone’s business, the certainty of  _ The Daily Prophet’s _ interest in the matter, if it got out. The freedom of expectation, of societal opinions, the thrill found in the illicit nature of the relationship… and that word,  _ relationship, _ falls so easily out of his mouth I start to wonder if he cares about the list he made before it. Before I have a chance to think on it he drops to his knees, fists his hands in the baggy knees of my pyjamas and tugs them down to the floor.

We don’t talk much after that.

*

Sunday breakfast is sausages and I’m half hard the whole time we’re sitting there, remembering last night. Lunch is meatloaf loaded with a cheese centre and the image of this solid hunk of meat dripping pale, glossy liquid from its centre is too much and my brain is in overdrive, wondering... When. If. Wondering whether I’ll like penetrative sex, who’ll do which thing, what it’ll feel like. Wondering if I can ask. 

_ Whatever you want, _ he’d said. So on the way back to the common room, I nod toward the stairs that lead down to the dungeons, and he smirks and pushes me ahead of him, checking no one’s there to see us slip away.

He tells me everything he knows, which, it turns out, isn’t as much as I’d thought it would be. I’m surprised, but my assumptions were based on his implications, and bravado is a part of him I’m familiar with. Neither he and Blaise (weeks ago) or he and Theo (years ago) had got that far, apparently. He knows what to do, but hasn’t done it either. It feels like a big thing, deciding we both want to. A mutual first that’s probably a bit too monumental for someone you’re not really going out with, who plans to leave you sometime soon. It changes the way I feel about touching him, and we sit for a while on Snape’s old leather couch, staring into the fire and not saying anything. 

‘We don’t have to do it,’ he says after a time.

‘I want to.’

‘Yes, but, if it’s going to make it weird between us, is it worth it? I’d rather carry on as we are than have some hideously awkward attempt at fucking each other be the last thing we do.’

‘It might not be awkward?’

‘You still haven’t given me a proper blow job, we could at least master that first.’

‘Are you scared?’ I ask him, surprised to find myself thinking he might be. 

‘No, I’m appropriately wary.’

‘We can talk it out. I find I feel more scared about things when I can’t be really honest about them.’

‘I see your mandated therapy worked wonders.’

‘I can go first,’ I say, not willing to talk about Healer Peters and how many wonders she actually did manage to work. ‘With the talking.’

‘Fine then, Potter, go ahead, lay your every thought on the table.’

‘I’m worried it’ll hurt. For whoever’s… receiving. I’ve—’ I pause and curse my own insistence on talking. ‘I’ve done some stuff there before, but not anything... big.’

‘That explains the lube under your pillow.’

‘It does.’ I feel the blush spread and my ears burn.

‘Were you, as you so daintily put it, ‘receiving’ in that instance? Or was she?’

‘Both, actually. She has really tiny hands though, so… it was— it wasn’t uncomfortable, when she did it.’

He holds his own hand out to me, palm up. ‘I can’t promise the same, obviously.’ His fingers are long, longer than mine, but slimmer, and I don’t hate the thought of them being inside me. I run the pads of my fingers over his index, the soft parts of his palm, push them into the delicate webbing until I’m holding his hand.

‘You’ll be fine,’ I say, and hold our joined hands against my thigh. ‘The first bit I can do and the next bit can’t be that hard.’

‘What about spells?’ he asks, and it takes a second for my brain to kick into gear. 

‘I know the ones for cleaning beforehand and we won’t need contraceptive charms, so…’

‘Aren’t there muscle relaxing ones?’

‘Maybe, but I don’t know what they are.’

‘Gin will do the trick then, I guess.’ And he smirks, knowing it bugs me to hear my ex’s name thrown into conversation so casually.

‘Alcohol definitely helps.’ I agree.

‘We can buy something else if you’d prefer?’ He says. ‘We still have this afternoon. We could go into Hogsmeade again?’

I look around the room, realising our missed opportunity. ‘Was Snape a drinker?’

‘He, er. He was. But at the beginning of the year, so was I, so… nothing left but some truly hideous Sherry.’

‘Right.’

We eventually get up off the couch and make it into Hogsmeade as the shopkeeper at Liquor-ish Wand is bringing in the sign from outside. We quickly choose a dark, spicy rum and a wickedly expensive Highland whiskey from a distillery that I’ve never heard of, apparently because I’m  _ ‘such a commoner’ _ . Draco insists on paying for both and I remember how it was when we were here yesterday, with the careless touches and the presents and the gentle teasing. He’s not acting like a fuck buddy, he’s acting like a boyfriend. But maybe that’s the way he wants it — 100% like it could be, but on a fixed schedule. Here I was thinking we would avoid anything remotely romantic, hoping our feelings wouldn’t catch on to what we were doing. Instead, he seems to have some sort of ability to turn them off and on at will and no regard for whether I can do the same.

*

That night we turn in early with a declaration of being so exhausted with all this parenting malarky, and Hermione says,  _ ‘Are you still not sleeping through the night?’ _ and I can safely say that, no, we aren’t, because whenever we’re awake at the same time, we tend to get distracted by our own bodies. 

This time, though, we’ve planned it. The door is locked in every way we can think of, Meggan has been wrapped in her new blanket, had a bedtime story and a lullaby and is making tiny little snoring sounds. If you think about it a certain way, we’re nailing this assignment. We have the happiest fake baby in Hogwarts.

On the other hand, we’re also subjecting her to an awful lot of adult activity playing out right by her bed. 

‘So,’ Draco says, and starts to undress, taking off his jumper and his shoes, loosening all the extraneous buttons on his shirt. ‘We’re doing this.’

‘Only if we want to,’ I say.

‘I do,’ he says automatically, then again, more emphatically. ‘I do. We should have a drink first, though. Definitely a drink.’

He’s nervous. 

‘How about,’ I say, ‘we agree to try the first bit, and then after that make a decision on the whole,’ I make a vague gesture with my hand. ‘The main event bit.’

‘That seems sensible.’

‘And talking about it, telling the truth, will make it less scary, remember. Even if it’s weird to say it out loud.’

‘Yes, Healer Potter, let’s just have a drink, shall we?’

‘I think you should call me Harry,’ I say, because if it’s going to be awkward anyway, we should start with something small. ‘I’ll call you Draco, if you want.’

He looks a bit spooked, even by that, and I wonder if the name thing was one of the parts helping him switch his feelings off. I also wonder if it’ll be a bedroom thing only — first names might be a bit telling for those on the outside. Hermione would certainly read into it if I slipped and called him Draco in front of her, even though I’ve been practising in my head for days now. Even though  _ she _ gets to call him Draco. Girls seem to have different rules.

‘I guess we can try,’ is all he says. ‘Rum, I assume?’

‘I’d like to try your fancy-pants whiskey if you don’t mind? See what a Galleon a dram tastes like.’

‘I doubt your palate is sophisticated enough to discern any difference from Ogden’s. But by all means, let’s try it,’ he says with a small smile. ‘Who knows what your tongue is capable of?’

‘You’re still thirsty for that blow job I owe you?’

‘I wouldn’t say no to it.’

‘Perhaps you’d like it to be part of the evening’s experimentation?’

‘Yes, let’s start with that, shall we?’ he says, and his eyes flick away as he goes to find his whiskey.

‘Of course,’ I say, and I wonder if there’s an easy way to do it so I’ll have unobstructed access to all his relevant parts. The bed isn’t going to offer that with his inexperience, unless he kneels over me with his arse in the air… 

I consider it — how to ask him to fuck my face and whether I want the first proper blowjob I ever give him to be so far out of my own control. It’s not that I don’t trust him, I just want this to be a bit more… even.

I could sit on the edge of the bed, but it’s too high. What we need is a couch or a good sized armchair. Which is doable, really, because  _ magic _ . I squeeze past where he’s pouring out drinks on the bedside table and he looks at me oddly. I ignore him and pull out the desk chair and set it under the window. I hedge my bets and grab a pillow from the bed, no sense not being comfortable. I concentrate and picture the old red velvet couch in the Gryffindor common room, often abused and just the right height for fingering someone standing in front of you without hurting your wrist.

There’s a whoosh of air being displaced and a dull pop as my hard wooden desk chair and Draco’s pillow are replaced with a plump emerald-coloured loveseat.

‘Potter, did you just transfigure us a sex couch?’ He’s standing with a glass in each hand, looking at me like I might be a bit weird.

‘Yeah, I figured it was a special occasion, hold still.’ I flick my wand at him a few times, the spells for voiding and cleaning and lubricating one after the other. Best take advantage of him standing still and having his hands occupied. Not to mention me still having the capacity of mind to perform the charms effectively, which generally requires having all my blood in useful places like my brain.

‘What the fuck was that?’ he says. I wonder if he can feel the lube?

‘Preparation,’ I say and unzip my hoodie, pulling it off and dropping it on the floor. I sit back on the couch and beckon him forward. He comes to me slowly and without meeting my eye. ‘You okay?’

‘Fine.’ 

‘How about I just suck you and then you can tell me if you want anything more?’ 

‘Stop treating me like I’m fragile, Potter.’ He goes to give me my drink, realises I'm about to need both my hands and instead just sips, no, gulps, at his own.

‘Call me Harry, would you?’

‘Fine.’

I reach for his belt and he lets me unhook it, pulling the leather free and leaving it to hang so the buckle tinks against itself in the quiet. I loosen the clasp on his trousers and slide the zip down. It’s about here, with the warmth of his cock against my fingers and the musky scent of him so close, that I start to get nervous. We’ve been at this point before and I’d tried, fumbling under the covers, but it hadn’t been what I was expecting and he’d been too close already, and he’d come before I could really figure out how to do it. I look up at him.

‘Have a drink, Harry,’ he says, and hands me one of the glasses, watching as I take a sip, remembering to hold it in my mouth to taste it better.

‘It’s nice,’ I say and he snorts.

‘You’ll have to come up with a better word than nice or you’ll owe me a Galleon.’

‘It’s very nice.’

‘That’s still a Galleon.’

I take another sip. It’s warm and the vapour is filling my nose, making it tingle. ‘Fragrant.’

‘Not bad,’ He tips his glass back, draining it, and leans forward to set it on the deep stone recess of the window ledge. His crotch is inches from my face, the dark, smooth fabric of his boxer briefs stretched tight across his hips, across the very, very noticeable bulge there. My hands itch to touch it.

‘Stay like that,’ I say, wrapping my free hand around the back of his knee and tugging. ‘Kneel over me.’

It’s a testament to his interest in what’s happening that he doesn’t try and call me out on the slight contradiction and simply comes forward to straddle me on the couch, his hands braced on the window ledge. He’ll be able to see out across the viaduct onto the lake if the light wasn’t so bright in here, and, well, that’s fixable. I drain my own glass and put it next to his before casting a wandless Nox and draping the room in darkness. My throat burns a little.

It’s easier not being able to see, in some ways. I let my hands do what they like, not worrying if I look clumsy or awkward. His thighs are warm and the fabric of his trousers is crisp under my fingers. I run my palms up until they find the open front and I ease them down past his hips ‘til the angle stops them from going further. The coarse hair of his legs is still a thrill ever after all the time we’ve spent together, the slimness of his body, the plump softness of his balls hanging heavy in front of my face, still bound in the stretchy black cotton of his expensive-looking pants. I don’t bother holding myself back, just give in to the urge to nuzzle them, to run my lips over the shape of his swelling erection, back and forth, feeling him harden under my touch.

He hisses above me, pushing his hips forward, and my heart pounds deep in my chest at the blatant display of want. I’m torn between teasing him further and just getting on with it, and my hands make the decision for me, curling around the elastic of his waistband and pulling down ‘til his cock pops free and slaps thick and heavy against my mouth. There’s no sense in thinking too much about it so I just open my lips to him and let my instincts take over. It’s almost easy, like I’ve been practising in my head for months, and that itch in my throat turns to a tingle of bliss as he presses gently into my mouth. 

My hands roam, and settle on his perfect arse, and I squeeze and stroke and, just subtly, tug his cheeks apart so he’ll feel it. Just a slight pull at the tight little ring of muscle I so desperately want to get inside of. He makes a sound when I do it and I wonder—

‘Stop teasing me, you bastard and do it,’ he growls from above me and I don’t need any more encouragement than that.

I bring one hand between us and reach through his legs, finding the slick of lube with my fingertips and run them back and forth ‘til he’s gasping every time I pass over it. I press the pad of my middle finger against the whorl and feel the muscle soften and flutter under the pressure. I wiggle it slightly and his hips jerk, his cock hitting the back of my throat for a second.

‘Hurry the fuck up,’ he growls, so I push against the rim and slide in, bracing myself for another thrust, but instead he pushes back onto my finger, his cock slides out of my mouth and he comes down to kiss me. My hand is trapped under him, my head tilted back to meet his mouth. His kiss is filthy, all tongue and gasping breath and over too soon. Then he’s tapping his cock on my bottom lip, pushing in and saying, ‘More,’ in a voice so broken I can’t even question it and I pull out and add another finger, holding them together in a point and spiralling them deep into him, again and again. 

He whimpers, eyes closed, a hand braced on the back of the loveseat. He must be close and I must be doing okay — he’s wound so tight, his hips are twitching and he’s shaking as he runs his fingers into my hair. Just as his breathing becomes panting, and I remember to worry about choking if he expects me to swallow, he pulls out, gasping, taking his cock in his hand. He does it right as I  _ finally _ find his prostate with my fingers and he loses any control he had left. 

He comes, then, spectacularly, all over my neck and chest, and sinks down onto my lap, impaling himself on my fingers and not minding at all, by the looks of it. My arm is laid braced along my thigh, pinned by his weight but I can still wiggle my fingers, and I do, a couple of times, ‘til he begs me to give him a second.

His forehead is damp against mine, and he’s still for a long time, just breathing. I think this might be it for the night but I’m wrong. He tells me (orders me, really) to wank till I’m close, and watches everything I do, kissing gently along my hairline, licking my temples, nipping softly at my brow. It’s ridiculously arousing and embarrassing now that our eyes have adjusted to the dimness and I can’t stop looking up at him, studying his expression every time he pulls back, hunting for approval. 

I can tell he’s ready to go again when he palms his own dick and starts to rock back and forth on my fingers, which are still firmly up his arse. The sheer fucking hunger of it all is almost too much — his eyes locked on my cock, the slight shake in his hand around his own, the hot slide of him against my fingertips. I have to tell him to stop or I’ll come. 

He just says, ‘Well then stop touching yourself, Harry, and touch me instead.’ 

‘This might be a good time to talk about the next bit,’ I say, breathless, as I’m wrapping my fingers around him. 

‘I have no complaints so far,’ he says, flexing his hips with a sigh, eyelids fluttering shut. 

‘No complaints is not consent to fuck you.’ 

‘Well, then.’ He pushes his hand into my fringe and tilts my head back ‘til he can look me in the eye. ‘I give you permission to shove your dick up my arse. How's that?’

‘There will be no shoving,’ I say with a smirk, adding a twist around his corona with my wrist and watching his breath catch. 

He leans forward, his hands on the back of the couch, no longer pinning my hand. ‘Gentle placement is also acceptable,’ he whispers, ‘so long as it's very soon.’ 

‘Soon, like now?’ I ask, pulling my two fingers out, adding a third and easing in again, feeling him stretch to accomodate me. Imagining already what it’s going to feel like when this isn’t my hand anymore. It’s  _ tight _ .

‘Yes,’ he hisses in my ear. ‘Harry, for fuck’s sake. Do it.’ 

So I do — adding more lube and lining myself up before guiding his hips down into place. The sound he makes as I breach him is… sinful and gratifying and fucking amazing. Better yet, he's a quick study and it's barely a minute I've been inside him and he's grinding down on to me and I bottom out before I've even adjusted to the tightness and heat and his sexy-as-fuck murmurings in my ear and it's not going to last nearly as long as I want it to.  _ I’m _ not going to last. All the problems Gin and I had and that was not one of them.

‘Harry. Don't you dare come yet,’ he says, perhaps noticing whatever tells I have, maybe he’s been studying them over the last few days, who knows. He grabs my nipple and tweaks it, hard, and my orgasm slinks back into the darkness.

The pain, and accompanying outrage, is enough of a distraction that I can pull my thoughts together and wrap my lubed fist back around his cock and tug at him to catch up. Soon I feel him twitch and flex in my hand, and his face loses its slack joy, tightening into a grimace, eyes screwed shut and his hips whipping faster and harder, before his movements get erratic and I know I can let go of my own control and fall with him. 

_ Fuck he's good.  _

I feel a soft curse against my cheek and the first pulse of his release against my palm. The tell-tale clench around my dick spurs me on and I thrust up into him a few times as he finishes, only beating me by moments. My free arm presses his hips down onto me as I shudder through my own orgasm and  _ fuck me _ if he isn't a natural at this. Maybe it's all the dry weeks beforehand but I swear I've never had sex like this before, hungry and careless and not afraid of doing anything wrong. The freedom is like a drug; the comfort a welcome surprise, and the bone-deep satisfaction on a level entirely new to me. 

  
This was  _ definitely _ a good idea. 


	7. The Very Hungry (Thirsty) Caterpillar

**_Eighth Year Suite, Harry’s Room_ **

**_Morning_ **

**_Day 8_ **

Monday is good. We wake up snuggled and it’s one of the only times in my life I can remember it happening so… normally. Like it’s not a big deal. Neither of us are wearing anything and it’s warm and nice and I only sort-of feel like getting off. Draco groans a little when he wakes up and stretches and rolls toward me and he’s hard and I suddenly feel very much like I’d like something to happen, so I just… do it. I start by nuzzling at his neck, dropping little kisses and nipping at his skin ‘til he’s properly awake and his hands start to wander.

We end up emptying the rest of the lube on ourselves and frotting, cock to cock, not a thing between us but the memory of what last night was like. It’s weirdly intense for first thing in the morning and yet, afterwards, he says something about owl ordering a lot more lube and I laugh and it’s just… fine. It’s nice, and not awkward, and I don’t regret anything we did last night like I was afraid we would.

We take turns showering, after a quick  _ Scourgify _ in the bedroom to take away the smell of lube and spunk that would reveal altogether too much about our living arrangement, and cruise through our usual breakfast routine.

Citizenship of Britain is second period, and we meet outside the classroom, switching the baby carrier over to me (Draco had Runes first which is way safer than Herbology). Van Mill waves her wand and does her checks and is thrilled at our results so far. I bet my entire fortune that she’s surprised to see us near the top of the class. Half the egg babies are out of the game already and it’s only been a week. So there’s us and Meggan, Ron and Hermione’s  _ Leda, _ Blaise and Ginny’s  _ Agatha, _ Neville and Hannah’s  _ Buttercup, _ and a few seventh year teams, including one pair that looks painfully uptight and have called their egg,  _ Fabergé. _

We discuss the assignment over scones at morning tea, throwing around ideas about who will “win”, who will be the next to be eliminated, either by Millicent-level sabotage or innocent fumbling, and whether or not there’s any sort of prize (and if there isn’t, that there should be). The decision is made that whoever, out of the eighth years, lasts the longest gets a round of drinks and a bowl of chips. Not counting Blaise, because he’s obviously a completely shit human who nicked my girlfriend and slagged off Millicent. She’s sitting at Gryffindor today and I can only assume it has something to do with a blushing and radiant Parvati and a smug-looking Hermione.

Draco asserts to all who will listen that we’re going to win, and Ron shakes his head in sanctimonious pity, still not believing us to be any real threat because we aren’t a real couple. Draco lists all the reasons we’re less likely to drop our baby than his girlfriend is (which basically boils down to: we’re both seekers and the baby isn’t a book). Overall their exchange is surprisingly civil, and Hermione and I share a look of mild surprise while they bicker about us. Her mild surprise turns slightly scary, though, and she looks like she  _ knows _ something. 

The rest of Monday is much the same, pleasant, and it’s not ‘til I slink off to bed by myself that I realise I haven’t thought about Ginny since second period. I’ve barely even remembered the fact I’m sad and alone and it occurs to me then, that I’m  _ not _ anymore. Well, for as long as it lasts, I remind myself, which throws a sort of gloom over the feeling of contentment. I shake it off with a quick wank in the shower, made faster by the freshness of memory. I don’t want to rely on getting off with Draco and forget the solitary joys of my own hand, after all. 

When I dress and get back to my room, Draco’s there, reading ‘Meg & Mog’ and doing all the voices and I can’t help grinning. It wouldn’t be a bad life, actually being with Draco. He’s not so prickly once he gets comfortable, not so defensive. And he’s ridiculously fit under all of that expensive tailoring. And, apparently, an exceptional fuck. All good things. Things that are going to make breaking up with him utterly horrible, but it’s what I signed up for, so what the fuck else can I do?

‘And to think you gave  _ me _ the #1 Daddy mug,’ I say, hanging up my towel and crawling over him onto the bed.

‘I’m perfectly fine with being number two. Especially to you. The expectations are lower.’

‘Being me is certainly not without expectation,’ I admit, and it’s too real and I don’t want it to ruin my Monday, so I pluck the book out of his hand, throw it onto Ron’s bed and pull him on top of me. He’s warm and enthusiastic and perfectly distracting. His kisses are quickly on the borderline of too much, I’m barely keeping up with him and I feel like I can’t quite breathe enough. I turn my head to the side and he attacks my neck, tongue hot and wet and teeth relentlessly pressing into my skin. I never knew I liked that until a few nights ago, and the sensation of being bitten makes me gasp under the weight of pleasure and memory.

His hands snake under my pyjama shirt, pushing it away, up and over my head, and while he’s sitting up helping me out of it, he whips off his own, throwing both to the floor.

I wonder what we’ll do, what I want, what he wants, what we still have the energy for, late on a Monday. It’s annoying to think about and it’s detracting from his tongue and his teeth and his weight pressing into my dick and I just shake it all off and  _ stop. _ I don’t need to worry about it. Not with him, he’s not going to complain I haven’t warmed him up enough or taken him anywhere nice lately, he’s just going to do what’s  _ good, _ and right now that’s apparently humping me a little and biting at my jaw and fucking  _ hell. _

‘When do we get to do it again?’ he whispers, his breath cooling my damp skin where he’s been nibbling at me.

‘Now’s good,’ I say, staring up at the hangings of my bed and wondering how the fuck I got so lucky. 

‘That was the answer I wanted,’ he purrs. ‘It’s my turn to do the fucking.’

I shudder at the confidence in his voice, the knowledge of what’s coming, and what it does to me, and despite coming all over the wall of the shower only a few minutes ago I find myself really quite ready for another round. 

He’s attentive and gentle and careful, and I’m weak in his hands. I end up with a pile of pillows under my hips and my legs over his shoulders, and he’s easing in so slowly, and I don’t know when I last remembered to breathe. Apparently Pansy was a fan of this position, and I swear I’ve never agreed with anything much she’s said before now, but I feel like I should owl her and say thank you.

‘Okay?’ he asks, and I nod, not together enough to make real words.

He wraps his arms around my thighs, pulling us closer, and the last inch is exquisite torture. The sharp stretch as the thick base of his cock pushes forward is horrible and wonderful and I’m supplicant and frantic all at once.

‘Fuck,’ is about the only word I can find to express myself.

‘Are you sure you’re okay,’ he says and I can hear the grin behind it.

‘Go slow, yeah?’

He doesn’t answer, just turns his head and kisses the tender underside of my knee, the soft silk of his hair tickling my skin.

It’s like that for a while, soft, cautious. He’s slow and restrained and I can tell what it’s costing him because his hands are shaking and he almost can’t keep his hips from pushing against my arse. His control is soothing though, and his tongue darts out at my knee intermittently, teasing. My own hand is wrapped around my cock, trying to keep myself balanced on the edge of too much and just about enough. It works, and I relax, and he notices, pulling out a fraction more and sliding home again. And again. And yeah, it’s good, it’s really good, and I must babble as much because he asks me if I’m ready for more and I look up to see him dishevelled and flushed and waiting, so, so patiently. 

‘Yeah, go,’ I say and he slams the rest of the way in. It’s only a couple inches but it knocks the breath out of me, and he’s pulling back again and pushing in and fucking hell, I’m pretty sure I just figured out why this was Pansy’s favourite. Every thrust is hitting  _ that spot _ and I’m a mess in no time at all. I don’t even bother playing with my dick, I just hold it, and it’s still enough to push me closer and closer. I don’t think I’ve ever been this vocal in my life and it’s horrifically embarrassing and I grab a pillow and bite down on it and I hear him laugh, but he doesn’t stop, he just keeps going ‘til my muscles tense up and I’m fit to burst and still he keeps pounding. 

I come so hard I click my own back and I’m twisting to get out of his grip because it’s too much, and I finish up lying on my front, my skin electrified and my come all over the duvet. He drops down over me, braced on one arm, the other skimming the rounds of my arse cheeks as he brings himself off without my help. He nips at my shoulder, my neck, the head of his cock dipping into the cleft of my arse and he paints stripes that I can  _ feel _ as his heat hits my sensitive rim.

I can’t fucking believe any of this. We’ve gone from barely interacting to some of the most ridiculously hot sex in a matter of days and none of it makes any sense. It feels personal but it isn’t, it feels good but it shouldn’t, and I feel irrepressibly happy about all of it.

*

The rest of the week is a blur of classes and sex, and I have to really  _ try _ to keep the contented grin off my face or risk giving us away. Draco is still being weirdly attentive and nice and sneakily affectionate in public and I’m still not sure what to do with it, but I fear it’s beginning to wear down my innate pessimism. I don’t want to... well,  _ want _ to be with him, and I know if I accept all his small gestures and just go with it, everything will get messy and our inevitable separation will be emotional and tense and I’ll end up really missing him. It’s already clear I’ll miss him physically. We barely make it through the door these days before clothes are coming off. I frequently have a semi over dinner, waiting for when we can be alone. Picturing it. Remembering it. Imagining new ways to take him apart.

Friday, we get our first night out by ourselves — Ron and Hermione are babysitting Meggan in exchange for us babysitting Leda tomorrow night. They have her ‘til ten in the morning, ostensibly because we don’t know when we’ll get back. Actually, because we’d like to fuck without her listening in at least once before we have to give it up.

We walk down to the Hog’s Head but ultimately end up in Edinburgh, in a pub with such a low-ceiling it starts to fuck with my perception of things. Or maybe it’s the raspberry beer they have on tap that tastes like yoghurt, sour and sweet all at once, and too delicious for moderation. I’m piss-drunk and giggling when Draco drags me into the street to find food and we end up in a different pub down the road eating steak and ale pie in the corner, our legs entwined and eyes for no one but each other. Nobody bothers us, or even seems to notice the two guys blind to the barely-dressed Scottish girls around them, blind to everyone else as they stagger to yet another pub, arms linked, holding each other up.

The rest of the night is britpop and shining lights and kebabs and an old man telling us to be good to one another and random strangers shaking our hands. There’s weird songs and rounds of drinks I don’t remember the taste of, and then, so late it’s almost early again, a very expensive portkey back to the gates of the school and a long trek up to our room. By the time we arrive home and fall into bed, I almost feel sober enough to wonder if we weren’t terribly reckless going out in public like that, so obviously together and with every chance of being seen by the press.

But then Draco slips a hand ‘round my waist and his touch is like cool water and I can’t help but roll into him and lose myself again in his kisses. It’s different this time, the sex. It’s slow, gentle, my chest is aching like I’m not remembering to breathe enough, and the whole room seems to glow with a warm light as we move together, his tongue sliding, hot and wet, on my neck and the soft scrape of teeth that sends me over the edge in more ways than one, so when I wake up in the dark, hours later, I see the outline of him and smile without even thinking, before I realise what I’ve done with a force so brutal it pushes tears from my eyes. I’m fucked, I’m  _ so _ fucked. I’ve fallen. And I’m alone.

*

When I wake again hours later, we have company, and we still aren’t wearing clothes. There’s two very familiar voices whispering and the contented burbles of two egg-babies. Draco is spooned up behind me, his face buried in the nape of my neck, his bare arm draped over my waist, and his dick nestled in the cleft of my arse. Fortunately, my two best friends only know about the first bits. Fair, they could probably assume something along the lines of the fourth, but I don’t want to think about that.

‘Oh, look, Harry’s awake,’ Hermione sounds… smug. Fuck.

‘So we can leave Meggan and go now?’ Ron says and he seems, bless him, to not want to stand there watching us regain consciousness in such a very compromising position. 

‘Please do that,’ I murmur, hoping Draco doesn’t wake up and I can get away with never telling him we clearly forgot to lock the door last night. 

Last night. Things filter back into my memory. The lights, the people, the drinking. Oh, the drinking… I should not sit up. Possibly ever. Hangovers hover there, waiting like evil pixies ‘til your head reaches a certain altitude and then they pounce, more so if your booze was magical in origin. I wonder if Hermione loves me enough to have brought me something for it? Would she have expected us to drink? I said we were going to the pub, but at the time I meant in Hogsmeade, not Edinburgh, and certainly not  _ all over  _ Edinburgh.

‘You should drink some water,’ she says and I wonder if she’s brought any of  _ that. _ ‘And eat, morning tea is in half an hour.’

‘Yeah, sure,’ I say into my pillow and really, if she’s got nothing to offer, she could probably just go away.

‘Mate, you do look a bit wrecked,’ Ron offers, and he sounds almost sympathetic, but mostly like he finds the whole thing a bit icky. Not because he’s found me in bed with a guy, it’s almost definitely because he’s found me in bed with  _ Malfoy _ and it’s probably quite clear that we’re naked, and the visible hangover suggests certain things.

Mostly, that I had a good night out with a guy we used to all hate with a vengeance. Second, that the nudity was probably pretty enthusiastic. Third, the fact I’m not crawling out from under old Ferretface with a look of disgust means I don’t have any objection to what’s going on. And so this is probably where Ron starts to realise what Hermione’s been smirking about all last week and what’s put me in a really good mood lately.

‘I expect he is, lord knows where the two of them ended up last night. I told you we’d need to bring them hangover potions,’ Hermione says and I hear a rustling.

Oh, she’s a goddess. I hold my hand out for the vial and the cool smooth press of glass is enough to make me whimper with relief. I crack an eye open, uncork it, and carefully tip it into my mouth without sitting up too far. 

‘Edinburgh,’ I say when the vial is empty. ‘Literally everywhere in Edinburgh that serves alcohol. Fuck.’ I lower my head back onto the pillow, wincing.

‘Shh,’ comes a sound from behind me, and a slim, pale hand comes up to pat my mouth.

‘Do you think they’re still drunk?’

‘Not a chance, drunk feels way better than this,’ I say through the forest of fingers. ‘I checked.’

‘Right,’ Ron says. ‘So, Meggan’s here, in her cot. We’ll see you at five when we drop off Leda.’

‘No, Ron, we’ll see them at morning tea, in half an hour. They have a responsibility as parents to be awake to look after their child.’

‘Whatever. I’m not enjoying seeing them  _ now, _ so I’m leaving, and I’m taking our daughter with me.’

Hermione  _ tsks _ and says her goodbyes, and there’s shuffling and the sounds of the door. I hear them start to bicker as the walk off down the hall and the soft happy gurgles of our egg-daughter. I open one eye to check we’re definitely alone before saying anything to Draco.

‘Morning.’

‘Harry. Shut up.’

‘We should get out of bed.’

‘We should not. You are, as usual, wrong.’

‘We need to look after Meggan, and Hermione’s right, we should eat.’ My stomach rumbles slightly in agreement. I wonder what flavour scones are on today.

‘Hermione can fuck off.’

‘She brought hangover potion.’

‘Hermione is a goddess and a credit to her namesake.’

‘Could you possibly unclamp yourself from my body for a second so I can reach it?’

‘You flatter yourself,’ he drawls. ‘I was merely holding on to the nearest solid object to keep the room from spinning.’

‘Yes, that’s what last night was about. The nearest solid object.’

‘Technically, Harry, you  _ were _ the nearest  _ hard _ object.’

I don’t reply, I can’t think of a single thing to say that won’t come out shitty or give away too much of what I’m feeling about his casual dismissal of me as a thing, so I just throw back the covers and look around for something to wear. I settle for my dressing gown and his slippers, since that means he’ll be without and I want to be petty right now. I chuck him the second vial of potion Hermione left on the bedside table though, because he’ll be impossible without it, and I still have a tiny bit of self-preservation instinct.

‘Where are you going?’ he asks, right before he knocks it back.

‘Shower,’ I say.

‘Wait,’ he whines, and I ignore him and leave anyway. I doubt, somewhere in the back of my mind, that he deserves to be treated poorly, but I’m sad and vulnerable and yes, that does make me a shitty person sometimes, thank you, Healer Peters. Got any ideas for fixing it yet? No? I thought not.

I manage to get wet and start soaping up before he forces his way into my cubicle and scares the ever-loving shit out of me. 

‘What are you doing in here?’ I hiss, hoping no one is around.

‘Relax, Potter, I checked, there’s no one else here. If you can keep your mouth shut, we’ll be fine.’

‘Fine for what?’

‘I’d have thought that was rather obvious,’ he says, and shucks his robe, revealing that long, lean, flawlessly pale physique. I hate that it turns me on just to see him. I’ve even started to appreciate him fully dressed, like, really appreciate him. But like this, sleep-rumpled and naked and slightly huffy that I left him behind, I have no chance of resisting. He’s even brought Meggan, tucked in her carrier and slung over the hook on the back of the door. I wonder what she’s going to make of this? I suppose if she’s reacting to our feelings… holding on to my irritation isn’t going to do me any favours. If I try harder to get him to leave me alone, really tell him to go away, he’ll be annoyed and I’ll be stressed and she’ll just cry. And if I give in? If I just accept that I’m feeling things for him, and that I’m doomed to the coming misery, what then? Will the temporary thrill of sex and meaningless affection be enough to calm her down? I’m only half the influence — perhaps he’s happy enough for the both of us and I can just take it and not bother trying to force a smile.

He starts on my neck, a surprisingly gentle kiss, a nuzzle. His hands are light on my waist, not tugging or drifting downward, just resting there, content. It’s hard to be pissed at him, at anything, when he’s acting sweet. I sigh out all my anger and he feels it, wraps his arms around me, loosely, stepping in against my back and turning his head. His cheek rests on my shoulder and I feel his hair slowly plaster itself to my skin. It feels intimate. It’s that or  _ careless, _ or  _ cruel, _ but I don’t think he’s even thinking about it. If this is him in his most natural state, his most unthinking, what does it mean? What does any of this mean?

*

It’s not ‘til we’re getting dressed in my room that I notice he has one too. A ring. I noticed mine when it scraped a deep groove in the bar of soap, getting all gunked up and making my finger feel weird. It was curious and meaningless. A weird indicator of just how drunk I was last night that I didn’t even remember where I’d bought it. Or who I’d nicked it from. Or what desperately earnest witch thrust it on my finger with a sloppy kiss to my cheek. Or wizard, I suppose, it’s not like I remembered. At least I’d felt relatively normal then. Hadn’t even thought to take it off. 

When I see his, though, the nice normal feeling falls out the bottom of my stomach. It occurs to me then, which finger his is on. Which finger mine is on. Where we were last night. And then it occurs to me all over again that I actually don’t know,  _ entirely, _ where we were last night. Not really. We could’ve gone anywhere. I want to ask Draco what he knows, but I don’t want to hear his answer, don’t want my wild fears confirmed. Don’t want to be teased for thinking it might be true, to be mocked for wishful thinking.  _ You wish you were shagging me.  _ That’s what he’d said.  _ You wish. _

And what if I do wish? I don’t want to find out the same time he does, with it written across my face like it was a billboard for badly kept secrets. So I shut my mouth and I look away from the glinting band on his finger, and I pretend I don’t know anything at all about the matching one on mine.

It’s easy for a while. I don’t need my hands for walking. I avoid bannisters. I insist on the Slytherin table, far from Hermione’s laser-guided eyesight and I eat food that doesn’t need buttering. I use only my right hand; the left is jammed between my knees. We make it through almost all of breakfast. Then we don’t.

‘What do you want?’ Draco snaps at someone over my left shoulder. I turn and find Blaise. Here. Near me. Dick-wicket.

‘Just wanted to say hello,’ he purrs past me, smirking at Draco.

‘I’m no longer interested in saying hello to you.’

‘What?’ Blaise puts on an air of mock offence. ‘You only say hello to Potter now? Is he your new special friend?’

‘Don’t see why you care,’ Draco says. ‘You broke up with me.’

‘Now, now, we had an arrangement, Draco, and it had stopped being mutually beneficial.’

‘If you’d fuck off and let us eat in peace, I think that would definitely be mutually beneficial.’ Draco takes a casual sip of his tea. ‘Mostly to you, because I won’t be forced to hex you.’

‘You’re very cranky, Sweetheart, did we finally  _ come across _ something Potter isn’t good at? Other than Potions and keeping a hold of his girlfriend?’

‘Fuck off, Zabini,’ I say, and it should probably be because he’s giving me shit, but I fear it might be because he’s calling Draco, ‘Sweetheart’ and I hate that and I might have to kill him.

‘Oh, and what’s that, Draco, a wedding ring? Don’t you think it’s a bit soon?’ the fuckwit smirks, and I don’t really see it happen but his laugh cuts off in an instant and Draco has his wand pointed at him and a glare on his face that reminds me too much of our past. It’s the first time he’s used it in my defence, though, and I don’t know what to make of it.

Zabini stomps off back to my ex-girlfriend and Draco carefully lowers his wand, placing it on the table. ‘Sorry about him,’ he says, glancing at his ring finger like he hasn’t seen it before.

‘It’s cool,’ I say. ‘Not sure it won’t backfire on you, but thanks?’

‘He won’t say anything to anyone.’

‘Isn't that sort of the point of  _ Silencio?’ _

‘Ha-ha,’ Draco deadpans. ‘I meant that he won’t make a big deal of it.’

‘Let’s hope not. I don’t fancy being on the end of his wand if his sense of humour is any indicator of his kindness.’

‘Having been on the end of his  _ wand, _ I can’t recommend it.’

I’m not expecting humour and a laugh takes me just as I’m trying to swallow some scrambled egg and I end up choking. The instinct for self preservation is greater than that for ring-hiding and I splutter into one hand while grabbing for a glass of water with the other. 

I can tell when he’s noticed it. His eyes lock on my finger and he says nothing, transfixed. Meggan sits in his arms, and he slips his right arm tighter around her to place his left hand on the table.

‘Harry.’

‘Yeah,’ I say, because I want just another second where I don’t have to face this.

'They're…' He looks down at his own hand, comparing. Sizing them up. 'You don't think, I mean - surely….'

'You'd certainly hope not.' I try and laugh, but it comes out rough, like a lie.

'And yet.' He rubs at his own with his thumb, turning it. 'Take yours off. See if there's an inscription.'

I feel a tiny twist in my gut at the thought of removing it, but I hold it tight and slide it free, oddly worried I might drop it. Not usually an issue for me with something small and gold. I turn it in my fingers and it’s like handling a tiny blade, it seems to sting, though my skin remains intact.

'It has yesterday’s date, our initials, and the words… fuck'

'It says fuck?'

'No. Pour— It's French I think,' 'Pour toujours? That sounds romantic.'

'Fuck me. What does mine say?' Malfoy's left hand lifts from the surface of the table and he wiggles his fingers at me. The silver band on his fourth finger is almost identical to my own gold one. 

I don’t really like the feel of my own in my hand so I put it down and immediately feel a burning pain in my ring finger. Where the band was, is a blazing circle of agony and my subconscious automatically undoes it’s last action, grabbing the ring off the wooden table. The pain eases. Dread floods my lungs and I have to test it again, to know. I lift my fingers from the circle of gold and the fiery pain comes back. I’m ready for it this time and I notice a couple of things: it’s very localised. The rest of my hand feels normal. Only the indented mark of where the ring has been is burning. I lay a single finger back on the ring and the pain goes away. It’s pretty clear. It’s not a good outcome but it’s clear. I pick it up and slide it back on.

Should I say something to Draco before I pull his off, or just wait and see if it does the same thing? If I touch the ring and him at the same time, will it work like electricity, using me as a conductor, and he’ll be fine? Will he know if this is what I think it is, the second it hurts him? 

‘Come on, Potter, what does it say?’ 

I reach out and take his hand. With nervous fingers, I ease his ring loose and watch his reaction, waiting to see the shock of pain. He’s not exactly calm, but he looks unbothered. I keep a hold of his hand just in case. It won’t look good but what choice to I have right now? And anyway, with Blaise on the gossip wagon, how long will it be a secret?

'Yeah, cool,' I read.

'Tell me what it says,' he repeats and I see his mistake.

'That  _ is _ what it says.  _ “Yeah, cool”,  _ with yesterday’s date and our initials.'

'Wow.'

'What do you think it means?' I ask, half knowing and half hoping I’m right, but the more practical half of me hoping I’m completely wrong.

'That we're horribly unsuited, considering,' he says.

'Considering what?' I ask, drawing out my wilful ignorance for one more moment. Enjoying the feel of it as I prepare for it’s loss. Wondering if there’s any sense in hiding my feelings anymore.

He sighs and his fingers flex under mine. 'Considering that it appears we're married.'


	8. (Please Don’t) Guess How Much I Love You

**_Great Hall_ **

**_Dinner_ **

**_Day 13_ **

Word of our union gets around the school incredibly fast considering neither Draco, nor I, actually told anyone. By dinner time, there is more pointing and whispering and disbelieving stares than Hermione and I had got when the _ Prophet _ declared us a couple. More than when Gin and I actually had been a couple. It’s even surpassed the interest in our subsequent break-up a couple of weeks ago. The thing is, it’s based on the fact that we’re wearing rings, not on any knowledge of what’s actually going on in my head.  _ He _ doesn’t even know that. Of course, we’re involved physically, but no one knows and only Ron and Hermione have enough evidence to suspect. It’s a weird feeling, trying to not react and feed the gossip mill, when the gossip mill turns out to have it more right that it knows itself.

Draco and I are sitting together at Gryffindor for dinner this time, having spotted Blaise and Gin at the Slytherin table, egg sitting on Gin’s knee while Blaise laughed and joked and stoked the fires of our new private hell. Eyes had followed us from the tall double doors all the way to our seats. Even my friends, people who’d been on the verge of accepting Draco as one of us, were staring in short bursts. They seemed unable to look away and equally ashamed to be doing so. Full minutes pass with no one uttering more than a greeting in our direction.

Hermione is the first to speak.

‘Can I see them?’ she whispers.

‘Later,’ I tell her and tug my sleeve down to cover my fingers. I’d tried taking the ring off a few more times throughout the day to see if anything had changed, and it hadn’t. It still hurt. It hurt to lose contact with it, and it hurt to have it brush against my skin when it wasn’t on my finger. The attempt to put it on a chain around my neck had been vastly uncomfortable. Tiny razorblades swinging past my heart. 

Draco and I haven’t really talked about it yet either. I almost mentioned the ring pain, just as a warning, but the implications, the fact it’s even happened, it’s too much, too close to what we’ve been trying to avoid. It’s a commitment in a relationship that, by its very definition, is the avoidance of commitment. I can’t even decide how I feel. I’d not have anything to say if he brought it up. It’s hideously uncomfortable and awkward and it’s opening us up to so much judgement that my anxiety levels are at an all time high. Just ahead of walking to my own death. Because it’s not just me being gossiped about, it’s him too and I can’t help but feel like it’s my fault. One of us probably should’ve stayed sober last night. Probably me. I get very  _ tactile, _ Hermione says. 

I wonder if it was me who suggested we get married? Because the other side of my anxiety is tangled in the fact that despite the shit situation; despite the discomfort and awkwardness and scrutiny… I kind of love it. I love the idea of being with someone forever. Of having a family that likes me enough to be tied to me legally, by obligation, not just by habit and history. It’s easy to like someone, it’s harder to stick with them when you’re annoyed at them or they’re being an idiot or they’ve just broken up with your daughter.

I want someone there forever because they have to be. Someone who can’t leave. And I like that’s it’s him. That he hasn’t spent his life worshipping the idea of me before we knew each other. I guess it means more when someone who used to hate you, gets to know you, and no longer does. When they seem to actually like you. And they want you. And everything you do with them feels so normal, except the sex, which is so much better than normal it’s almost scary. 

He has his head down while he eats, one arm tucked around Meggan, his right. He’s not even hiding his ring - gleaming bright next to his wholegrain toast. There’s a certain defiance in it, I think. I imagine it that way, that he’s not ashamed. Even though the actual nature of our relationship remains a secret. And no matter how much I’ve avoided looking at my feelings because of that, they’ve made their place in my chest and they’re blossoming under the knowledge we’re now technically  _ together. _ And that he’s not even complaining. He’s actually been very quiet. 

I nudge him with my knee and he looks over at me, eyes more like his usual grey in the light here. He’s painfully good looking and it’s a wonder I never noticed before this year. Maybe it’s the fact he has a greater range of expressions nowadays. More than just fuming or sneering and laughing at me, his lip curled in disgust.

His lips don’t do that anymore. They have a whole range of other occupations when it comes to me. Least of all, actually talking.

‘We should talk,’ I whisper. 

‘We’re babysitting tonight,’ he reminds me. ‘Maybe then.’

I nod and wonder what his use of “maybe” means. Does he not want to? Does he think we won’t get a chance? Should we be taking the girls somewhere entertaining? They should be in bed relatively soon or Sunday’s going to be far less than relaxing. 

‘Where are you guys going tonight?’ I ask Hermione, hoping an unrelated conversation might ease the weirdness at the table.

‘Hogsmeade,’ she says.

‘For dessert,’ Ron adds, wiggling his eyebrows.

Hermione sighs and adds, ‘Actual dessert, there’s an Italian place that does good tiramisu, in the alley behind the bookshop.’

‘Dante’s Inferno,’ Draco says. ‘Their wine list is impressively diverse, also.’

‘Oh?’ she asks.

‘Yes, if you’re having tiramisu, I suggest the Riesling they get over from New Zealand. The grapes are picked late so it’s sweeter but still crisp - the weather there is especially good for a sweet but still acidic white, it’s cooler than Italy. It’s from a Wizarding vineyard — Pegasus something? There’s definitely a winged horse on the label. It’s a bit of a blur, to be honest. It wasn’t the first bottle we’d had that night.’

‘We?’ I ask and immediately regret it — I must sound like a jealous lover, and now, especially, is not the time for revealing that much truth.

‘Pansy has a taste for coffee-flavoured everything,’ he says though, and I catch the patient look he gives me. ‘She found the lack of tiramisu at Hogwarts unforgivable.’

‘I found her willingness to hand Harry over to You Know Who, unforgivable,’ Ron grumbles.

‘She was right, though,’ I say. ‘I wanted to go. It made sense.’

‘Still don’t like her,’ he says, but lets it end there.

‘What’s on the cards for after dessert?’ Draco asks Hermione, and she takes the hint to change the subject, explaining their need, still, to decide on an activity. There’s a play on at the tiny little brick theatre, apparently, but also a stand-up comedy night, and they haven’t been able to decide which. As much as Draco might’ve said this morning that we were “unsuited”, I can’t help but notice we’ve never disagreed on leisure activities. Certainly not if one of the options is drinking a lot, and apparently not even if it’s “checking out this convenient wedding chapel”.

They discuss the merits of both while we finish our dinner, and Draco lets me take Meggan out of his arms after a while, so he can finish his food in peace. Soon, with plates clean and the remains of dinner cooling on the table, Hermione and Ron get up to leave, and Leda is handed over to Draco. He looks slightly taken aback at the honour, but Hermione simply rattles off her egg daughter’s usual bedtime routine as Ron tries to tug her away by the elbow, their cloaks thrown over his arm.

Eventually, we’re alone, two egg-babies instead of one, and a shiny new trifle on the table. 

‘Don’t tell Ron what we had for dessert,’ I say. ‘He’ll never go on a date ever again.’

‘Is that what they’re doing — a date?’

‘Well, yeah. They’re together, so, isn’t it automatically a date?’

‘We’re married,’ he shrugs, his expression dry. ‘Was last night a date?’

‘Well. It wasn’t when we left the castle.’

‘Oh.’

‘If you wanted it to be, I’d imagine you wouldn’t have suggested the arrangement we actually have.’

‘Would you have acquiesced if I’d asked you out?’

‘Of course not, you’d barely spoken to me all year and we used to hate each other with our entire souls.’ Now, though, of course I would.

‘Who else would you have ended up with?’ he scoffs. ‘No one else in eighth is remotely gay except Blaise.’

‘I’m bi, I could’ve gone out with anyone.’

‘Oh, you could?’ He sounds unflatteringly dubious.

‘You know what I mean.’ 

‘That you’re arrogant, just like I always said?’

‘No.’ I let my anger slide away, I have no room for it at the moment. ‘I probably wouldn’t have dated anyone.’

‘All year?’

‘Yes, all year. It’s not mandatory.’

‘But wouldn’t you have been insane with frustration?’

‘Probably,’ I say and take a large bite of trifle. ‘But I also wouldn’t have ended up accidentally married to someone who asks a lot of questions, so the pay off might just have been worth it.’

‘You’d be lonely without me,’ he says to his own dessert, and his voice has lost its edge.

‘I certainly would tonight,’ I say and bump my shoulder against his. It’s almost a lie and it hurts to say it but I’m hardly going to vomit all these new feelings on him now. Or like, ever.

‘So what are we going to do?’ he asks, mashing sponge into his custard.

‘Eat too much trifle, get fat, waddle back to our room, put babies to bed, fall asleep?’ I suggest. ‘Research, perhaps, if we’re feeling spritely.’

‘Ah, yes,’ he holds up his left hand. ‘I’m keen to know why this tiny thing threatens to burn my finger off when I try and remove it?’

‘You noticed that?’

‘Yes, thanks for the warning, since apparently you did too.’

‘I thought it might just be me.’

‘Yes, of course,’ he says. ‘Magic has different rules for you, doesn’t it?’

‘Trifle doesn’t. Eat, and we can go lie down.’

‘So much romance in this marriage already, I’m overwhelmed.’

‘Fuck off. Neither of us signed up for romance,’ I say, hoping he doesn’t see how fucking sad I am about that. I scoop the rest of my dessert into my mouth and try to drown the sadness in calories, but the gloomy thoughts are unstoppable. ‘I doubt you signed up to marry a boy at all, however will you continue the family legacy? What will your mother say?’

‘I guess we didn’t. And I do not want to talk about what my mother will say.’ He sounds pissy and I want desperately to read into the fact that he’s dishing himself more trifle before he’s properly finished his first bit. Maybe we’re both sitting here doing the same thing. In a perfect world, maybe he’d have the balls to tell me he’s changed his mind, and we’d be upstairs already, acting sappy and making plans for our future and having super slow sex while staring into each others eyes. Maybe we’d cry and cuddle together afterward instead of it just being me, crying alone in the dark. I could do with a drink.

Another bowl of trifle (each) later, we were, indeed, waddling up the stairs. Meggan and Leda burbling at each other but the two of us silent. I kept thinking back to our conversation and wondering if I’d imagined the pissiness in Draco’s tone. Did he want secret, temporary romance along with our secret, temporary fucking? It seemed such a risk, to play at something so close to real feelings. How did he compartmentalise his emotions so well? Maybe that was a privilege of a normal upbringing and parents who loved you — maybe it wasn’t scary to play at love if you’d been loved before. Fuck my stupid childhood and the fuckery it’s always wreaking on my life. I wonder how illegal it would be to burn down number four, Privet Drive? I don’t know why I should have to keep paying for their shitty parenting.

I want to try something reckless, see how he reacts, see if I’m right about his want for romance. I shift Meggan into the other arm and reach out for his hand. He flinches slightly in surprise, but lets me thread our fingers together with nothing more than a weird look and a soft blush. There’s no one around, the route to the library is typically pretty deserted on a Saturday night, and tonight is no different. Regardless, I loosen my grip and let our fingers slip free once we’re in sight of the tall, carved doors, just in case. There’s enough gossip going around without me fuelling it.

Pince isn’t behind her desk. Instead, there’s a single seventh year prefect whose expression turns to shock as we walk in side by side, doubly laden with blanketed bundles. She has a slightly too-interested look on her face, and I throw out the idea of asking where we might find information on Wizarding marriages. No need to give them more to talk about  _ that _ way either.

Draco seems to know where he’s going anyway, steering me with a warm hand on my waist, and even that’s probably too much for the poor girl to handle. It takes all my self-control to not look back and see if she’s staring. I feel distinctly more comfortable once we’re behind the cover of the stacks. 

It’s rare for me to be in the library without the looming pressure of assignments so it’s probably the first time I’ve appreciated just how nice it is. The lighting is warm and soothing, the air dry but cool, and the silence is almost palpable. I feel like I couldn’t speak if I wanted to. When Draco does, it’s in a whisper.

‘Can you hold onto both girls, or shall we put them on the floor?’

‘I think we’ve established I can’t even hold on to one girl.’

He gives me a tired smile and pushes Leda into my arms, before walking back out of the aisle and off to the right. The joke wasn’t that bad so I can only assume he’s fetching something, unless he’s had a clever idea and I’m meant to follow him. I take one step and he suddenly appears again, pushing a small book trolley in front of him. It pretty much consists of two small, square baskets, one on top of the other, on legs, with wheels. I wonder just how much research he thinks we’re going to do.

‘I think it’ll be safe,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to kill their baby, everyone will assume I did it on purpose.’

It takes a second but I realise he intends the trolley for the eggs, not the books, or perhaps both, I think, as he settles the girls in the top basket. They fit snuggly next to each other and the sides are high enough they won’t fall out. We can fit books in the bottom basket if we want to. And apparently he does want to, because we end up at a table with seven volumes just from the ‘Ceremonies and Rituals’ section. We haven’t got to ‘Marriage, Family and The Home’ or ‘Love and Other Human Issues’ yet. For reasons I can see now he’s explained it, we’re starting here. Apparently, we won’t be going anywhere near ‘Enchanted Objects and Cursed Jewels’, which is actually a comfort. I feel like a good curse might finish me off about now.

We manage a whole twenty minutes before the girls require cuddling, and even then, they’re fussing again by eight o’clock. Calling it, we check out the four books we’ve yet to touch and return the others. The prefect on duty looks at us with something akin to suspicion, now, but says nothing beyond ‘hello’ and ‘you have two weeks to return them’. She doesn’t mention the use of her trolley as an egg pram.

Settling both egg-babies at once is some effort, and we climb into bed with relief, even if it is with big, boring library books. Draco has procured us tea, and, much to my surprise, pulled out reading glasses, so we read very little for the first few minutes, whispered teasing and quiet sipping of drinks being far more important. He learns to ignore me though, and I’m left looking at him, sitting up in bed with his Dad’s Taxi mug and his fancy silk pyjamas and a faint bruise on his neck from where I’d bitten him last night. And the ring, of course, with my own embarrassing words engraved in it, there for eternity. Or as long as it takes us to find a way to end it, if that is indeed what we’re doing.

We make our way through all four books, making notes where necessary, Draco admiring my muggle pen and shitty ring-bound notebook from WH Smith. I smirk and he huffs and we decide Ron’s bed is the best place for finished books because we won’t trip over them in the night and it’s not  _ “disrespectful to the years of scholarship and dutiful research that went into publishing these”. _

I rearrange my pillows for sleeping and flick through the notebook, reading everything Draco has added in his precise, elegant handwriting. He joins me, head on my shoulder, and we last all of two minutes before the notebook is thrown aside and our glasses are placed carefully on the night stand and we descend into the hazy bubble of distraction and pleasure our proximity offers. I can’t help but notice the weight of it now, the bare reality of what we’re doing. The fact we’re fucking married, and—

‘Draco,’ I say, placing my hands on his shoulders. ‘Wait.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘The book I was reading mentioned consummation. How it solidifies the union. Makes it harder to break.’

There’s a long pause, his face in shadow and I wonder if he’s busy marvelling at how I didn’t think to mention it sooner.

‘Three things,’ he says, and leans back in to nip at my throat. ‘One, I’m pretty sure it only counts penetrative sex. Two, even if it didn’t, after last night it’s probably a bit late to be cautious. And three,’ he licks the line of my jaw. ‘Shut up.’

‘So, what, are we never going to do that again?’

‘I said shut up.’

‘I read—’ my mouth is suddenly host to his, and his tongue is quite insistent that I really do stop talking, so I do. And that desperate part of me that might be in love with him revels in the fact we actually, maybe, might have already made this whole thing somewhat more than temporary.

*

We wake to crying egg-babies and a dark room. Unsure what’s set them off, we bring them into the bed and cuddle them, soothing them back to sleep while we’re still half asleep ourselves. I almost don’t have the energy to put them back in the cots once they’re quiet, but they’re between us and I want to be closer to Draco so it’s entirely selfish when I do. He’s warm and languid, all loose arms and soft lips, a sleepy weight on my chest. I want to burst with contentment, or pride or something, and the fizz of energy it sends through me is heady and exciting and my skin is too receptive to his touch to just do nothing.

My free hand finds its way into my pyjamas, and I hold myself, feeling my cock thicken under the pressure. Draco doesn’t notice, his breath warm against my neck.

It’s barely even wanking, really, I’m just easing the tension of being so close to him and him being too pretty and me being a sap and falling for him far too easily. 

He smells amazing, as usual, and his hair is soft against my cheek when I turn to breathe him in. His hand twitches on my chest and I wonder if I should wake him up and start something. I wonder if he’ll be more annoyed at me getting off without him or keeping him from sleeping. I don’t have to keep wondering for long because he slides his hand across my chest and lays his fingertips on my bicep. 

‘Harry…’ he murmurs into my shoulder. ‘Whatever are you doing?’

‘Almost nothing.’

‘Would you like a hand with your almost nothing?’ he asks, and the tickle of his fingertips creeps down my arm. 

A handjob doesn’t sound bad at all, actually. ‘If you’re not busy.’

He doesn’t say anything else, just pushes my hand down and out of the way and wraps his fingers around me. He’s gentle and slow and his fist is tight, and it’s too good too soon, and I’m trying too hard in my head to not attribute it to my feelings and it’s putting me off.

‘Relax,’ he says, and nips at my shoulder, kissing over the teeth marks, nuzzling into my neck.

The thing is, it’s good, and I like it, but my brain is working against me and I need something more to push past it, switch my thoughts off. And I don’t really know how to ask for it. 

‘Draco? Could you…?’ I say, and he stops immediately and I almost cry out, but manage to turn my need into words. ‘No, don’t stop, please.’

‘What do you want, Harry?’ he purrs in my ear.

I lift my leg, the one closest to him, and hook it over his thigh, and I’d hope that’d make it clear enough. ‘Please.’

‘Do the spells, then,’ he whispers, and tugs my knee higher, over his hip and strokes the underside of my thigh and I shiver.

I pull my wand out from under my pillow with shaking hands and barely manage to pronounce everything correctly. He just continues running his hands up and down my thigh, getting lower with each pass ‘til his fingers are brushing over the slickened whorl of muscle and I’m twitching where I lie. I hold my cock still, waiting, not wanting to come ‘til he’s actually got in and not trusting myself to hold on if I move. He teases me, a smile against my cheek, a tiny laugh as he presses down, finally, and I jerk under his hand.

I wonder if he’s going to make me beg, but he doesn’t, just slides a finger in and dots kisses along my jaw while I quietly lose my mind beside him. It’s too intense and I give myself a few strokes to blur it out, and I find that plateau, and I can’t stop.

He adds another finger and I have to bite down on my lip to stop myself from groaning too loud and he doesn’t like that. I feel him shift, sitting up so his face is over mine and he’s whispering against my mouth to  _ “Let go”  _ and then he’s kissing me, and I try it, I just… stop holding it all in for a second, and it’s five long seconds of bliss and a shattering orgasm and a long, long time ‘til I can fall asleep, trying to cram everything back inside.


	9. The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

**_Great Hall_ **

**_Early Morning_ **

**_Day 14_ **

We’re up early and in the Great Hall before the majority of students have bothered getting up. Some of the other egg-parents are there — one of the seventh year pairs at Ravenclaw and Neville and Hannah are up the front of Hufflepuff, sitting close and drinking tea. I wonder if this assignment is doing some good there — he deserves to be happy. 

We have a long section of table to ourselves and we’re safe to talk about things without being overheard. My shitty notebook is open in front of us, and Draco has transfigured a couple of bread rolls into a sort of basket thing so Meggan and Leda can sit on the table between us. I pour the tea and he selects the two best scones from the platter — uniformly shaped for him and dark and crispy for me.

‘Why don’t we read the whole list of things all together and see what links up?’ he says. ‘It’s a start, once we know what questions to ask we can do some more specific research, ask a professor or something.’

‘You think it’s safe to ask one of them — that it won’t be obvious why we want to know?’ I can’t imagine us standing in front of a professor with a baby and matching rings is going to be remotely  _ subtle. _

‘You think they don’t know already? Everyone else is talking about it.’

‘None of them have said anything.’

‘Slughorn never would — he’d decide that I’m no longer Slytherin and thus not his problem. McGonagall won’t bother with it ‘til it’s no longer just a rumour; she’ll want facts. Flitwick would probably find it all “cute”, Vector’s all up her own arse, the new Transfig guy is probably still scared of us.’ 

‘Right, and Sprout has plausible deniability because I’m usually wearing gloves in her class.’

‘Exactly. And the new Defence teacher that’s apparently in charge of your lot seems not to be able to find her own elbow, so even picking you out of a crowd might be an issue.’

‘You know, I’m not even her best student, Ron is.’ I smirk, thinking back to last lesson when he’d defended Leda from a stray hex from Lisa while he was already duelling me.

‘To be expected — he grew up with magic, it’s more instinctive for him.’

‘So what, us Muggleborns are doomed to inadequacy?’

‘No, Harry, you’re perfectly adequate,’ Draco says and sips his tea.

‘Oh goody. Adequacy.’ I nod. ‘That must’ve been what killed Voldemort.’

‘And Weasley’s instincts and Granger’s brains kept you alive long enough to do so, right?’

‘Yeah. Lucky or you’d be a widow already.’

He looks up at me from under his fringe and the sheer hotness of him hits me again, right in the gut. ‘You can’t marry someone who’s theoretically already dead,’ he drawls.

‘You also,’ I turn the notebook toward me, trying to get back on task. ‘Cannot marry someone without their consent.’

‘Folie à deux, as expected,’ he says and I don’t even bother asking him what the fuck that one means.

‘You cannot marry someone that is already promised to someone else,’ I continue, ‘already married, or not yet born.’

‘All sensible laws.’

‘Though this is interesting, and in your handwriting…’ I look up at him.

‘Yes?’

‘One can only rely on the fortitude of the bond of magical matrimony if the parties are of sound mind, of true heart, betrothen to one another or confined by parental shackle… does that mean what I think it means?’

‘That you’re apparently not crazy, according to the requirements of this particular marital ceremony?’ He smirks at me.

‘That wasn’t the bit I was surprised at. Does the ceremony recognise Meggan as a parental shackle?’

‘I suppose it must, considering the alternative,’ he sips his tea. ‘I doubt our parents had anything to do with this.’

‘Do you think ‘true heart’ meant honest? True heart…’ I mull it over, it reminds me of something dragony. ‘It sounds like a knight who gets given a sword.’

‘So that he might twist it in the heart of his betrothed? How macabre,’ Draco raises his eyebrow. ‘Maybe he did it to avoid marrying her.’

‘Ah, but he cannot marry her anyway if he’s not of sound mind and the heart stabbing suggests otherwise, doesn’t it?’ I point out.

‘Indeed it does. You prove your adequacy again.’

‘Right,’ I read further down the page, to the next thing I’d copied out. ‘Annulment of a marital bond is reliant on the retroaction of an existing promise or a child. In the demise of any of these, the bond may be broken on a solstice, with the aid of a certified magical celebrant or ship’s captain.’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘So, if we assume Meggan is the reason we were able to be married at all, when she, effectively, dies, we should be able to dissolve the union, which will mean no more rings?’ He tugs the notebook over to his side of the table again. ‘Though we can probably rely on the rumours remaining.’

‘Okay.’ I wonder if it’ll be that easy, and if so, why did I shoot myself in the foot by writing the information down? Damn Hermione for teaching me to study properly.

‘You’ve also written here the solstice isn’t always required,’ he says, and I realise maybe I’ve shot myself a lot. All over the place. Heart maybe. Lungs, gut, dick, all of the places.

‘It’s theorised that the solstice was used because it naturally amplified the earth’s magic to facilitate a strong bond or dissolution of one,’ I say. ‘From what I read, if the strength of the bond ceremony was greater than the strength of the dissolution ceremony, the marital union will remain, though weakened.’ As will I be. Weak, sad, worse off than I was when I only missed Ginny.

‘So we’d still have to wear the rings...’ he says. ‘Though Hogwarts is imbued with a lot of magic of its own. If we get someone particularly powerful to do the dissolution, it should work fine.’

‘That’s a risk to take,’ I say, hoping I’m not being completely transparent. ‘Wouldn’t we be better waiting for the solstice?’

‘Winter’s gone, we’d have to wait ‘til  _ midsummer _ ,’ he frowns.

‘That wouldn’t be  _ that _ bad.’

‘I guess. We can cross that bridge later I suppose. Tell me what else you found out,’ he picks up his tea again and fiddles with the pen, clicking and unclicking the knob.

I take back the notebook and read off a list of weird facts about marital bonds and magical wedding rings, many of which we’ve already figured out, but it’s nice to know they’re very normal effects and nothing sinister or difficult to untangle. I’d also found a reference that confirms my theory from yesterday morning — if one spouse  _ ‘holds his lover’s hand and his lover’s ring, no pain shall befall her’. _ It’s nice to note it works for couples who don’t have a  _ her _ in them as well. Kudos to magic for being progressive.

Hermione arrives as we start to discuss the last entry we made — consummation — and Draco goes quiet, even though I’ve just asked him a rather important question.

‘Morning,’ she says, looking chipper and, honestly, well-shagged, if the extra fluff in her bun is anything to go by. Or Ron’s smile. Ugh. At least I didn’t have to witness it this time. ‘Were they okay last night?’ she asks and lifts Leda out of her bread basket for a cuddle.

‘Minor grizzling at about four,’ I say, ‘but otherwise fine. We took them on an exciting trip to the library.’

Hermione’s face falls so quickly it’s almost comical. ‘The library?’

‘Yes? Sorry we went without you?’

‘It’s fine,’ she says, clearly not fine at all, ‘I just—’

‘Hermione,’ Ron sighs, dropping onto the bench beside me. ‘Leda has no eyes and cannot read, taking her to the library for the first time isn’t the life-changing event it would be for a real child.’

‘She can hear if you talk to her though, read to her.’

‘I assure you, we did not read seven volumes of dry, tedious information about Ceremonies and Rituals to your daughter,’ Draco says and passes her the teapot.

‘Oh,’ she says again, and the library is forgotten. ‘Is this about the—’ she flicks her eyes left and right, ringlets falling out of her bun. ‘The marriage thing?’

‘The  _ marriage thing? _ Is that what people are calling it?’

‘Not all of them, some are being quite a lot more creative than that.’

‘Ron, shush.’ She flaps her hand at him. ‘Tell us what happened.’

‘We don’t really know,’ I say. ‘We went out, got drunk, woke up with these,’ I hold my hand up to show her the ring.

‘Can I see?’ she grabs at my hand.

‘We can’t take them off.’

‘What? At all?’

‘They can technically be removed,’ Draco explains. ‘But the owner experiences significant pain right where the ring is meant to sit on their finger, until the ring is replaced.  _ If _ they lose contact with it. If they’re still holding it, the edges of the ring feel sharp, like a blade,’ he grimaces. ‘Though fortunately, no actual, physical damage seems to be done in either case.’

‘It hurts if you take it off?’ Ron asks.

‘A lot.’

‘That’s not normal, mate,’ he says, and shoves a roll in his mouth.

‘My parents weren’t able to remove their rings at all,’ Draco shrugs. ‘This is merely inconvenient.’

‘My parents’ wedding rings don’t hurt them,’ Ron says through his mouthful. ‘They can take them off and no form of  _ torture _ takes place.’

‘Ron’s right, this isn’t normal,’ Hermione seems hesitant. ‘It’s a bit controlling, actually.’

‘Why would you need that if both people actually liked each other — you wouldn’t want to cause them pain, would you?’ Ron says. ‘You wouldn’t take any pleasure in punishing them.’

‘Maybe it’s the drunk teenager special then?’ Draco suggests, full of sarcasm. ‘Saved for idiots who drink too much without thinking about the consequences of their actions.’

‘I doubt that’s a real thing,’ Hermione smiles, ‘But it would serve you right if it was, wouldn’t it?’

Draco directs his sarcasm at me. ‘Your friends are so supportive, Harry, I can see how you did so well at life.’ 

‘Hey,’ Hermione says. ‘I never said I wasn’t going to help you figure this out. The library’s nice and quiet at this time of morning.’

‘Food first, woman,’ Ron says, ‘You’ve worn me out.’

‘Well, maybe you need to get more exercise,’ she says and she’s blushing and I wish they’d just shut up so I could be miserable in peace, but then Draco shifts his foot so it’s tucked between mine and it all doesn’t seem quite so bad.

*

Sunday morning ends up being another few hours of research. Hermione has insisted we look in ‘Enchanted Objects and Cursed Jewels’ just in case, and with her at the helm and Draco more than happy to engage with her, Ron and I leave a note at the table while they’re off in the stacks and take the egg-babies for a walk.

Ron eventually asks the question I’m dreading and I shrug, not sure how to justify my feelings even to myself.

‘You must like him a bit if you’re not freaking out about being married to him,’ he says. ‘I mean, you’re living together, parenting together, you have most of the same classes. If you weren’t a little bit interested don’t you think you’d be at each others’ throats like before?’

‘I dunno, he’s not that taxing anymore, and he doesn’t really say that much. He reads a lot. Pays attention in class, takes notes.’

‘Well, what about when you’re alone?’

‘We do homework, look after Meggan,’ I shrug, and I feel the blush of a lie burn my ears. ‘He reads. We sleep.’

‘Yeah, but,’ I hear Ron smile. ‘That’s not all, is it, mate?’

‘Mostly.’ I flick my eyes around, praying no one’s around to overhear any of this.

‘You’re sharing a bed with him. It’s pretty obvious something’s going on. Especially yesterday morning.’

‘It’s not a big deal, Ron.’

He makes a disbelieving sound and leaves us in silence for a moment. Then he asks, ‘Is this why you and Ginny broke up?’

In a way,  _ no, _ of course not, but the general idea of me with a guy, well, yeah... that’s probably part of it. But telling him that would lead to telling him about Charlie, and no one wants that. ‘Ginny  _ dumped me, _ that’s why we broke up.’

‘Yeah, but. Is that why she dumped you?’

‘Why don’t you ask her?’ I say as we turn a corner into a wider corridor, one that I suspect is quite close to Ravenclaw and thus a dangerous place to be having this conversation.

‘I did,’ he says, ignoring how pissy I sound. ‘She said she wasn’t going to be the one to tell me about your stuff. That I should ask you.’

‘Nice of her. Like none of it was her fault.’ 

‘Was it? She always seemed really into you.’

I let out a sigh. If he really wants to hear about his sister and I and how we fell apart, fine. He can. ‘Yeah, it was pretty mutual. I mean. Yeah. As you know, I was dealing with new things, but I still liked her, she was just… hard work. She needed a lot and I needed some time and it wasn’t really working.’

‘But it’s working with Malfoy?’

‘We’re not going out,’ I snap. 

‘Sure you’re not. You’ve gone straight past that to married.’

‘We’re not  _ really _ married,’ I say, and it hurts to be so practical about the situation, when I really just want to ignore the fact it’s destined to be temporary.

‘You  _ are.' _

‘We  _ aren’t, _ we got drunk and bought rings, we can get it annulled on the solstice or something.’ I wish I cared as little as I’m implying, or that I could actually tell Ron how I feel, but he’d never get it — anyone else I liked, sure, but not him. ‘Draco reckons it might work before then, if we do it at Hogwarts cos it’s a magically powerful location.’

_ ‘Draco _ is feeding you shit, Harry.’

‘We researched it.’

Ron stops walking and I turn to check if he’s okay, but he’s just standing there staring at me like I’m incredibly thick. ‘And he conveniently failed to tell you that you can’t actually get married in a wizarding ceremony  _ accidentally? _ There needs to be some  _ intent.' _

‘The book just said we had to be sane and honest and "betrothed or in parental shackles", and we have Meggan, so I figured it was that.’

‘Harry. Seriously. You thought a school assignment with a fake egg would fool thousand year old magic?’

‘Well—’

‘Face it, mate. You guys are married. For real.’

‘Well...’ I grasp for something to keep me from getting too hopeful. If Ron, who grew up in a large family, who probably knows about these sorts of things, thinks we’re properly married, then… what if we are? ‘Don’t we have to consummate it for it to be, like, finalised?’ I whisper, looking around for eavesdroppers.

‘You were naked when we found you,’ he hisses. ‘There were clothes all over the floor. Do you not even remember?’

‘We didn’t…’ Oh my god, this is horrifying. ‘It wasn’t, you know, we just—’ my face is on fire and I can’t look at him.

‘Harry,’ he steps toward me, his voice low. ‘Do you remember a mystical glowing light? Kind of orangey? Overwhelming feelings of happiness? Everyone having a good time? Any of this ringing a bell?’

‘Fuck.’

‘There we go.’ He pats me on the arm.

‘We’re actually married.’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘What am I going to tell Draco?’

‘Naive of you to assume he doesn’t already know.’

‘But—’ I feel like someone just poured a bucket of doubt over me. I can’t believe we did all that research for nothing, that Draco’s been talking about annulment like it’s merely an inconvenience. That he might be pretending it’s nothing while knowing it isn’t. ‘But what the fuck is he playing at?’

‘I dunno. You gotta admire his level of commitment, though. He’s doing a good job of acting like he’s completely clueless.’

‘So he lied? Right to my face.’

‘I suppose he could be an idiot, though Hermione reckons he isn’t. I dunno, mate. Unless he’s never been to a wedding or known anyone who ever got married…’

‘Well. How do I figure that out?’

‘Can’t help you with that, mate.’ He pats me on the arm again and heads back the way we came, back to the library and his girlfriend and my fucking actual  _ husband. _ We’re almost there before he asks, ‘So what are you going to do?’

And I can honestly say I haven’t got a fucking clue.

*

Sunday has been awkward enough already, so when McGonagall stops beside us on her way up to the head table for dinner, I’m resigned to whatever it is she has to say before she’s said it. Draco and I are to meet her in her office at seven. No explanation is given as to why but it’s an easy guess. If the volume of gossip about our weekend wedding wasn’t at its peak though, I probably would’ve worried it was to do with either of our other transgressions: the fact we’re involved in the chain of room swapping that’s violated Hogwarts’ outdated gender policy, or, worse, the fact we’re very definitely, regularly violating the “hands-off” policy the school has. Even if the teachers only enforce it in the  _ public _ spaces. There’s suspiciously not an official ruling on the expectations around the student body and sex in  _ private, _ but the intent seems to be, “Please, for the love of Merlin, don’t get pregnant on our watch”. No risk there.

We eat dinner in a tense silence and barely touch dessert, though that’s probably more to do with it being rice pudding and neither of us having much of a taste for it. ‘It’s like sweet, sloppy risotto,’ Draco complains, and someone from behind us yells out to,  _ “stop talking about your sex life”, _ so we give up and go and sit on the stairs at the front entrance, watching the stars come out, ‘til it’s time to meet McGonagall. A few couples skitter past us while we’re there, heading for the greenhouses and the privacy they offer, and I wonder if that’s what we’re doomed to if we have to move rooms. Boarding school is no place for a normal relationship, if all you get is dirty corners and cold stone floors. Gin and I hadn’t done too bad, but only cos the Quidditch Captains get keys to the sheds and I’d made a copy of mine while I’d had the chance. Admittedly, at the time, it was so I could fly and not because I’d ever expected to have a girlfriend. That key’s probably still sitting somewhere in the Forest of Dean, lost forever.

McGonagall doesn’t offer us tea when we get there, and her lecture is short and to the point. Basically, we’re idiots, and she’s just going to let us suffer.

Luckily, she didn’t ask about the details of the ceremony or whether we’d consummated anything. We’d both shifted the rings to other fingers and Draco had added his family signet and another nondescript band to hide the significant presence of his own. I relied on my right pinky being unnoticeable inside the cuff of my hoodie and forced myself not to fiddle with it, even though it felt weird on the wrong finger. Draco was much more controlled. As usual. I let him do the bare necessities of questions answering.  _ Yes, _ we’ve heard the rumours.  _ Yes, _ they’re true.  _ No, _ it wasn’t a decision we made in our right minds.  _ Yes, _ we will definitely think twice about excessive drinking in the future.  _ Yes, _ Edinburgh really is lovely this time of year.

‘You’ve brought this upon yourselves and you’re just going to have to live with it,’ she’d said. ‘I’m not exactly qualified to annul frivolous student marriages, am I?’ she’d given us a look that dared us to disagree, but we’d had no intention of saying anything at all. We’d agreed with a nod, at least one of us knowing we were way past annulment.

She let us go with a stern look and a request for us to not cause any more grief before school was over.  _ "One year without incident, Mr Potter, would likely do us both some good.” _

We walk back in a tense silence and I don’t know if he’s thinking about the fact she’s refused to help with a non-solstice annulment, if he’s thinking about us not being able to fuck properly ‘til midsummer, or if he’s regretting lying to me about the whole thing and wondering how pissed off I’ll be when I find out.

Whatever it is going through his head, he reaches out for my hand once we’re alone in the corridors and holds on to me ‘til we’re home.

*

The saturation of gossip through the school all the way up to the staff table seems to loosen Draco’s tongue. And his hands. He is, for lack of a better way to describe it, owning it. Any hesitation about referring to our surprise wedding is mine and mine alone. He refers to me as "Darling" over breakfast, a mischievous smirk on his face, and I refuse to react. A small portion of me is dying from barely fulfilled longing. The rest is lost on how to deal with this new quirk of his without making a big deal out of it. I can’t exactly tell him to stop in front of everyone, so the small portion is doomed to die, again and again, every time the endearment passes his lips. 

Citizenship of Britain is a bit of a mess. There are five pairs left in the running for top, and while Van Mill hasn’t ever announced that it’s even a competition, it obviously is one among us. There’s pride on the line. Ron, still, is talking a lot about how he and Hermione are going to win because they’re a real couple, though I wonder how much of it is genuine since he now knows that so are me and Draco. Is he doing it to get people to lay off their obsessive scrutiny of us? It’s a tactical move I’d not put past him, but also shows more sensitivity and acceptance of Draco than I’d have expected.

Transfiguration is mostly fine, but Draco seems to sit so that our knees are pressed together as a matter of course, now, and I lose count of his casual touches. Anytime he could elbow me for my attention, he uses an open hand instead, and usually it’s right on my thigh, which is… distracting. It’s not like I’m going through lessons with a semi but I haven’t thought about the possibility of it so much in my life. No one has ever been quite so free with their hands in class. Gin and I never shared any, so it’s a weird thing to have to deal with all of a sudden.

Charms is less noticeably different because he’s still helping me with atmospheric charms, and it’s difficult and most of our attention is on the work. It makes me think though, how much would I be struggling without him? Does he realise what a difference his help is making to my progress? My stress levels? He’s a decent tutor, despite the sarcasm and inappropriate touching. I can make clouds now, big grey ones, though I’ve yet to push them over into rain. I managed once, I think, or maybe it was about to rain anyway. Regardless, he praised me and it seemed heartfelt. 

Potions is all theory and his knee is a permanent fixture against my leg again. When he leans in to comment on Slughorn’s atrocious spelling, his fingers slide across the top of my quad and curl over my inner thigh, stroking a faint line there, so sensitive I barely hear what he’s saying. By the end of the day I’m ready to throw him up against something solid and kiss him ‘til he bleeds.

We bypass the kitchens after class and pick up leftover scones, thick with butter. Every second we’re in the corridor down there, far from the watchful eyes of the student body, I consider whether this will be the wall I throw him against. 

Wandering back, Meggan strapped to my front and Draco carrying my bag, it dawns on me just how nice it is to be cared for. To have someone fill that role, to look out for me. There’s something in that, about gender roles and sexism, not to mention being an orphan, but the politics of it doesn’t detract from the point. Draco is taking care of me. I matter, for the time being, and he’s good at showing it, which is cruel in a way, but I’ll never go into another, real, relationship with the same low expectations I had before now. 

I don’t know if he has any idea of the effect his small touches have, or how it feels to be helped so selflessly in class (without anyone’s lifelong Gryffindor loyalty to fuel it). I can’t help but wonder, as we walk together towards the eighth year suite, how different the two of us might have been with different upbringings. Maybe we wouldn’t struggle with advanced charms, or with entrenched racism, and maybe neither of us would settle for a relationship based on teenage lust instead of actual, genuine affection for one another. Maybe we’d think we deserved more than this.

In the relative silence of the corridor, I decide I do think he deserves more, and maybe I do too, but it’s an impossible thing to voice, so I steer him into an alcove instead, throwing a charm up to hide us and pulling him in by his collar to kiss him. Meggan is in the way and the whole thing is far more tender than usual because I can’t hump him into the wall with a baby between us. I wonder if this is a bad decision for half a second before his hands are in my hair and then I forget everything. There’s no room in my mouth for doubt, and there’s no room in my heart for anything but hope.

Things get warm. Desperate and heavy. I shouldn’t have done it like this, in a corridor. Not because we’ll get caught kissing, but because I don’t want to stop now we’ve started, and there’s no convenient couch or bed for what I want to do to him. Though. That particular activity would also come with a conversation that it was apparently too late to try being careful and making this whole thing easy to annul. That we’d already consummated this marriage without meaning too. That the quick fix we spent all that library time looking for, was never going to work. 

And after that discussion, would come the unavoidable revelation that I actually want this to be real. And that apparently my unspoken intention, my  _ feelings, _ had been enough to make whatever we did on Friday night  _ count _ for something.

And I can’t say that. Not yet. Maybe not ever.


	10. What The Ladybird Heard (And What Everyone Else Has Been Saying)

**_2nd Floor Corridor_ **

**_Early Evening_ **

**_Day 16_ **

‘I got a letter from my mother,’ Draco says as we’re walking back up to the eighth year suite after classes on Tuesday. It’s been another day of his tiny touches and my barely contained feelings.

‘Okay,’ I say. His voice doesn’t match the trivial information. ‘Anything serious?’ I wonder if it’s to do with whatever she thinks about this that he didn’t want to talk about. Perhaps he really is expected to marry a girl.

‘She’s sent me some documents from the lawyer. Nothing to worry about, you know. Just a few things for you to sign.’

‘Sign why?’ I ask. He’s not meeting my eye and now that I think about it, why has he waited ‘til now to tell me? ‘What for?’

‘The Manor, a property in France. A few small investments.’

‘What about them?’ 

‘Well, apparently, they’re now partly yours. Please don’t make a big deal of it.’ Now he does look at me, and he’s clearly unhappy. Maybe that I’ve taken half his house, maybe that his mother found out we were married, maybe he’s embarrassed he doesn’t have a property in Switzerland or something. We stay quiet walking through the common room but he picks up again the second our door is closed. ‘Once we have the annulment, it’ll automatically sort itself out and you won’t have to deal with anything. I don’t know how they even found out if this isn’t properly official yet.’ He gives me a wry smile and drops our bags on Ron’s bed. ‘We’ve certainly not consummated anything in the traditional way.’ 

All that worrying yesterday and I have to tell him anyway. I unclip Meggan and lift her out, laying her on the bed. The baby carrier I hang on the back of the door and I kick my shoes off and under the bed. I think about getting changed before I mention anything but the moment’s almost passed already.

‘About that…’ I say. 

‘Yes...?’ He’s in the middle of taking his tie off, and the sun is coming in the window and making his hair shine, and he’s clearly stolen a pair of my socks this morning because they have lions on them and they look very, very familiar. It almost gives me hope. Maybe sock-stealing is a sign of love in his world.

‘Do you remember a kind of golden, glowy light? When we were— when we got back on Friday night, and we were in bed? Together. And the room looked like it was glowing. I thought I was seeing things or that maybe I was still drunk, I mean, technically it was Saturday morning I supp—’

‘Harry.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Spit it out.’

‘The glowing light means something. Remember, they called it a Midnight Sun in the book, and we didn’t know what they meant at the time, but th—’

‘Harry.’ He sits down heavily on Ron’s bed, tie forgotten. ‘Are you very ineptly saying what I think you’re saying?’

‘We might be actually, properly married,’ I say. ‘We might have consummated it without realising.’

There’s no ‘might’ about it. I cornered Hermione in Defence this morning and made her promise she’d find out more about the glowy light Ron had mentioned, and, well. Hermione did her thing. I still have the page of notes she made, in my pocket, with a personal summary of her opinion and the fateful words,  _ “we were focusing on the rings this whole time and not on what you actually remembered — idiots!” _

‘Oh,’ he says. He won’t look at me.

‘Hermione mentioned that she didn’t know how it worked for non-het couples and that— well, she mentioned that the glowy light was an effect of the solidification of the magical matrimonial bond. Acceptance of it. A, er, sign of it being real, you know?’

‘Real?’

‘Yes. She, er, she mentioned that maybe the magic reacted to intent and not to specific acts.’

‘Intent?’

‘Yeah,’ I say and I feel like I’m handing over the keys to my own heartbreak. ‘Er, whether or not one of us had, you know, feelings. I’m sorry, I— I can’t—’

‘No. No, Harry, I— I’m...’ He takes a breath. Shakes himself.  _ ‘I’m _ sorry. And I’m going to go and have a shower. Be alone for a bit. Can you put Meggan to bed?’

‘Of course.’

And he leaves, without even a look, and my heart  _ hurts. _ I can feel it like a physical force in my chest, pressing. Squeezing ‘til I think it’ll break me in two.

*

I don’t sleep easily that night. There’s too much unsaid, and even though we’ve gone to bed officially okay with each other, something still feels off, like we haven’t said all there is to say, because of course, we haven’t. I haven’t told him that when he touches me, I can’t think anymore. That every time we’re alone together, all I want to do is crawl inside him and live there. I want to meld with him so I don’t have to say things out loud anymore, and all my stupid, fucked up feelings can be safe, away from where anyone can hear them. I haven’t told him I trust him, that I think he won’t make fun of me if I say, out loud, that I love him, just a bit. I haven’t said that it scares me to say it, though, either, and that I don’t want him to just call it off if I do. I’d rather be repressed and have him, than let anything out and lose him because it’s the complete opposite of what we agreed to and  _ “For fuck’s sake Potter, can’t you control your feelings?”  _ Because of course I can’t, I never have been able to.

Usually it’s anger or stubbornness or some equally dangerous refusal to shut up and bide my time. Sometimes it’s just recklessness and a need to feel like I’m doing something about all this shit, and yeah, I used to drink my feelings a bit. But with him it’s a hurricane of  _ want. _ A swirling, instinctive need to reach out for him, and every day we’re together, and every time he calls me  _ Darling, _ I lose a little ground and I get closer to the chasm’s edge. One day I’ll stand there and shout it into the void, all my feelings pouring out like blood, and I don’t know what I’ll do after he up and walks away.

I dream as much. Of cliff tops and jumping over rocks and spiky ravines, vivid images of the wild nothing of rural Scotland offering a brutal backdrop to all my internal mess. Images of the camping trip flick in and out. I remember almost drowning, almost falling, almost burning under dragonflame. My heart is thumping and my throat hurts and I jolt awake, right as our tent slides off the side of a rocky riverbank and into the icy water of an unnamed burn.

He stirs beside me in the dark, the rustle of sheets a beacon in the darkness, bringing me back to reality. A hand on my arm, a tether to the comforting, safe horror of my actual life. His voice is low.

‘Harry,’ is all he says.

‘Bad dream,’ I say, needlessly, because I’m half sitting up, panting. ‘Sorry.’

‘Stop being sorry for things that aren’t your fault,’ he says. ‘Lie down.’ And he pulls me over so I’m draped across his chest, still tense and awkward from my violent return to consciousness. His touch is too much of a comfort to resist for long, though, and I snuggle into his side. Maybe I’m relying a lot on his polite empathy, playing the nightmare card just to feel him next to me, but I don’t care. I run my fingers along his collarbone and pretend like we’re okay for real.

He strokes my hair for a time, then my back, and I start to wonder if that’s all he wants, or if my usefulness will outweigh the awkwardness of my having accidentally cemented us together. When his hands reach my arse, I can’t help asking him what he’s up to.

‘Realigning your mood,’ he says. ‘Bad dreams make you sad and your arse makes me happy, I’m making it balance.’

‘Shouldn’t you be doing something to make _me_ happy instead?’ I say, because pretending to be okay is kind of my thing and I might as well use it.

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ he says airily and heaves me bodily on top of him. For someone so skinny, he’s pretty strong and it constantly surprises me. ‘Tell me want you want.’

‘I was actually pretty happy just getting a cuddle to be honest.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘I’m not,’ I say, and it comes out sounding kind of pathetic.

‘I suppose you weren’t hugged enough as a child.’

‘I wasn’t hugged  _ at all  _ as a child. After my parents died.’

He reaches his mouth up and kisses me, chaste, on the lips. ‘If it helps any I don’t think my father ever hugged me, even when he was alive.’

‘It only helps me think we’re both pitiful,’ I say, resting my head on his shoulder. ‘We suit each other.’

‘Luckily.’

‘It won’t be so bad, will it, being married to me for a while?’ I say, and I feel like it might be the bravest thing I’ve ever said.

He sighs and pats my hair. ‘I believe we have a year ‘til we can get divorced, according to mine and Hermione’s research,’ he says. ‘Nine months in Ireland, but you have to have been married there for it to count. We’ll manage.’

‘Fortunately I have no other suitors. You won’t be forced to duel anyone.’

‘And you’ll get to holiday in France on a vineyard, you lucky bastard.’

‘So lucky,’ I say, wondering where he’ll be when I’m in France, but he squeezes me into a hug and it almost feels okay.

*

Breakfast is pancakes, a rare treat, and a welcome one considering my less than peaceful night. I slice Draco’s into small pieces and I think every girl at Gryffindor swoons slightly. Parvati tells me the whole thing is cute and we have her and Millicent’s support. I don’t know what to say but I appreciate the sentiment, especially the tiny part of me that wishes it were real. It’s a thrill to have their approval and I know I should expect it, since they’re now dating themselves and of course they’d be supportive of any other queer couple. It’s still very kind though, and in the fragile state I’m in, I feel a bit sentimental. I wonder if they know what’s really been going on — if it’s obvious. And if so, can they just tell we’ve been sleeping together or is it the mess of my emotions that’s making this visible?

Charms is almost enough to convince me it’s all my fault. I have a breakthrough with my clouds and the shock of cold rain hitting my face is such a boost to my mood I almost grab him right there in class. I stop with my hands barely an inch from the front of his jumper and pull myself back just in time. He wasn’t even moving to stop me and we share a look that says  _ “oh shit, that was close”.  _ I keep my distance for the rest of the lesson, because even though he’s been really good about the whole accidental consummation thing, I don’t want to push it, and act too keen and weird him out. He’s quiet too, and I guess it’s just like this now, awkward, with my fucking  _ intent _ sitting over there in the corner on display.

Herbology is a welcome break from his presence, and has me, Meggan-less for the lesson, pruning something nasty-looking alongside Neville. He prattles cheerfully about Hannah and Buttercup (which is a ridiculous name for an egg) for a good ten minutes before I think to ask him the obvious question.

‘Are the two of you going out now?’ 

‘No,’ he smiles. ‘I wish we were, I really like her.’

‘Why don’t you ask her out then?’ I say, envying how open he can be about his feelings.

‘I don’t know what she’d want with me, Harry,’ he says, his gentle Yorkshire accent softening the ends of all his words. ‘I just want this assignment to last a bit longer so we can hang out more. Maybe she’ll ask me and I won’t have to.’

‘Neville, you killed Voldemort and saved our entire world. Why do you still think girls won’t date you?’

‘You killed him, Harry, really. I just took care of the snake.’

‘Which contained the last of his soul,’ I point out. ‘He was technically still alive when I destroyed his body. It’s on you.’

‘It’s not really a very good chat-up line, though, is it, killing someone?’

‘Don’t say that,’ I sigh, ‘it’s all I’ve got right now. Or maybe a sad childhood that makes me all moody and deep.’

‘Harry,’ he huffs. ‘You’re a great leader, and a teacher, and people are always surprised you’re not a knobhead, considering, you know. Being famous, and all that.’

‘Not a knob, my best feature.’

‘You know what I mean,’ he smiles.

‘Yeah, well,’ I snip a half dead branch of my shrub. ‘If I had a Hannah, I’d be dubious about asking her out with that as my greatest selling point.’

Neville’s quiet for a second, then, ‘What about Draco? Are you two not… you know? I mean, I know you’re married, and everyone’s saying it’s just because you were drunk... but you seem quite… close,’ He almost looks up at me and only gets as far as my chest before diverting back to his shrub. ‘I thought there might be more to it.’

‘What do you mean?’ I ask, because maybe he’ll chicken out and stop asking awkward questions if I make it harder.

‘Well everyone’s assuming it were a Muggle ceremony, but I thought maybe it were proper wizarding, you know? I mean, if it were Muggle and it was just shenanigans, like, wouldn’t you just take the rings off? But I noticed you haven’t, and wizarding ceremonies have a bit of magic to do with the rings, so… I dunno, it were just a theory.’

‘Yeah, but that’s only certain types of magical ceremony though, isn’t it?’ I say, wondering if it’s even possible to waylay him when he’s being too observant for my own good. ‘Aren’t some of them a bit less, you know, magicky?’

‘Yeah, but, like. The old families don’t want nowt to do with ‘em. It’s modern, something Muggles do,’ he shrugs. ‘Someone like Malfoy don’t seem the type to not go full traditional, I thought. But I don’t know, you were there. What was it like?’

‘I don’t really remember, to be honest, we really were drunk.’

‘Do you remember owt about it?’ He looks up at me, curious but not pushing. ‘People there, lights, songs, potions, you know?’

I think back, and that weird round of drinks and the excessive amount of handshaking flick through my vision. ‘Not really,’ I say, and the guilt of lying to Neville, of all people, stings. ‘Maybe,’ I add, and the feeling eases.

‘Can I see your ring?’ he asks instead, and I don’t know how to answer. The obvious dirty joke is on the tip of my tongue, but if there was ever a safe person to talk to about this, Nev’s it. He certainly doesn’t seem to have a problem with Malfoy and I potentially liking each other.

I put down my secateurs and tug on the tips of my glove, clumsy inside the thick suede. When I pull my fingers free, he takes them, examining the gold band, turning my hand over. It’s an unusual sort of a touch for us, and I notice how soft his skin is, how there’s a slight clamminess to him from the gloves, how large his palms are compared to mine. He’s taller than me still, always has been, and thicker set. Not as chubby as he used to be, not after last year, but there’s a sort of comfortable softness to him that makes him look like he’s good to cuddle. Draco is all sharp angles and elbows, his shoulders made of sinew and bone, nowhere to pillow my head and be truly comfortable.

‘D’ya mind?’ Neville says, and indicates his wand, held loose in his hand, and I nod. He taps it and it pulses with a white light for a second, proving what I already knew — the ring is magical. ‘D’ya mind if I try something else?’ he asks.

‘No, of course not,’ I say, before remembering the slightly prickly tendencies of this ring. ‘It won’t hurt, will it?’

‘Only if you’re secretly in love with him, like,’ he says and points his wand at my finger.

I react on pure instinct, and I hate how naked it makes me feel as he looks up at me, his hand suddenly empty and mine clutched to my stomach like it needs protecting.

_ ‘Harry,’ _ he says and the hot flush of pure dread burns my ears.

‘Please don’t say anything,’ I beg, making it a thousand times worse. ‘He doesn’t know.’

I cast a  _ Muffliato _ around us, just in case. If anyone’s been listening they’ll know too much already, but I’m not about to tell anyone other than Neville my innermost thoughts. I’ve barely told myself. 

‘Okay, so. We’ve been fooling around a bit, recently, since the egg thing started, and we did get drunk and get married, and yeah, you’re right, I know it was a wizard ceremony and it was pretty powerful and we thought— we thought if we didn’t, you know, have sex, it wouldn’t be traditionally finalised and we could get an annulment, but apparently what actually mattered was  _ intent, _ and because I’m— you know, in love with him, it ended up being consummated anyway, when we were just, you know. Not actually having  _ sex _ sex.’ 

‘My nan’s told me about proper wizarding weddings, a bit. Hers, my parents. I’ve been to a few, when I were younger. She said when she were younger, her cousin, rich bloke from down Brighton way, tried to marry a young middle-class lass, a Muggleborn, and it didn’t stick. Really embarrassing, she said. All the family decided she was a gold-digger and wouldn’t stop talking about her. She were run out of town.’

‘Okay. Why?’

‘Well. Normally when people get married, they both love each other, so you don’t have any problems. But if one of them is just pretending to be in love, it won’t take. Like if they were only after a bloke for his money.’

‘Oh.’

‘Nan said the lass’ finger near burned off, where her ring was. It sounded horrible.’

Hang on, what?

‘Her  _ finger nearly burned off _ ?’ I forget my shrub entirely, suddenly painfully aware of the gold band I swear I couldn’t feel a second ago.

‘Yeah, Nan says the rings are there to make sure you’re true of heart, so you don’t marry the wrong person.’

Oh.

‘And those rings, would they hurt any other time?’

‘Only if you take ‘em off. That’s why that lass was in so much trouble, hurt to have it on and it hurt to take it off.’

Shit... ‘But if you keep them on and it doesn’t hurt, it means…’

‘That you love each other… Harry?’ He puts his secateurs down, his brow rising. ‘Is that,’ he gestures weakly toward my left hand. 

‘Yeah,’ I say and my knees suddenly don’t feel normal and I don’t really know what to do so I just kind of slide to the floor and sit there in the dirt. ‘Fucking hell.’

Neville folds himself down next to me. ‘Isn’t that a good thing though?’ He looks at me in earnest. ‘If you love him, and he loves you back?’

‘I don’t know. We aren’t really together like that.’

I don’t think I can make enough words to even explain to Neville how we  _ are _ together. I think I want to — he’s figured out in about five seconds what I haven’t known for days — that it’s… mutual. I mean, it makes sense, really, that both parties would have to be… emotionally invested, in a marriage. To make it work. It was stupid of me to assume it was all my own feelings and intent that made it happen. The tiny piece of me that had hope all along is making my stomach feel weird. There’s a clear  _ I told you so _ sort of vibe to it and I wonder if I was being a bit blind again, like I was with Ginny.

‘Could you be, you know, together like that?’ Neville asks.

‘I don’t know,’ I say, and I’ve been saying that a lot lately. Too much. I’ve not had any time to myself to think about anything, so perhaps I’ll see to that today. ‘I’ll have a think about, I guess.’ 

I almost leave it there, vague and unhelpful. But it’s Neville, and leaving him out of anything feels like closing a door on a kicked puppy, and I honestly feel like laying out my feelings all over the dirty floor of the greenhouse might actually make me feel better. 

He’s looking at me with a sort of wariness, and I feel guilty; does he think I’m about to tell him off? 

‘I would like for us to be together like that,’ I say. ‘But. We had an understanding there’d be no emotions and with a particular end date decided, before anything happened, so I don’t know what he’s going to want. His intentions might not have changed since it started, even if he does… you know. Love me.’ The words feel weird in my mouth, like I’m lying, and it’s a bit too real and I’m bombarded with a hundred reasons it can’t be right, all at once. ‘What if his family expects him to produce an heir? What if he  _ wants _ to produce an heir? What if he just doesn’t want to be married before he’s nineteen? And if I bring it up, and it goes badly, the only thing keeping us together is an egg. And the shagging would probably stop, and then I’m worse off than I am now.’ I let my head thunk back against the bench. ‘This is all mental. This whole mess is all because I wanted to get off with a bloke. Why did it have to be him?’

‘Legend has it, teenagers used to have the freedom to shag about and act like idiots, you know. Fancy people. Before the war. I reckon you’re doing alright at that.’

‘Thanks?’ I try and smile. ‘You too.’

‘I’m still acting like a wimp though, aren’t I? No way I’d have the courage to look at Hannah if I hadn’t had to stand up to the Carrows and Snape and that, but I still can’t ask her out.’

‘If I can end up married to Draco Malfoy, I’m pretty sure you can get a  _ date _ with Hannah.’ I believe that, completely, because Neville is the most decent bloke I know. He has reminded me of something though. ‘What was Draco like?’ I ask. ‘Last year?’

Neville sighs and leans back against the bench. ‘Sad. Scared. Like someone had pulled the rug out from under him and he were expected to be brave and mean, when he’s always got by on being rich and good-looking to get people to do what he says.’ He shrugs. ‘I mean, he still acted like a dick, but.  _ You know.’ _

‘What?’

‘Well, weren’t he just trying to protect his mum? Not die and the like?’ Neville looks at me like we of all people should understand, and he’s fucking right, of course. ‘He were shit at hurting the little ones, got in right trouble with the Carrows.’

I let that settle in my head for a moment, pleased when it doesn’t make anything feel off. ‘So he wasn’t a total arsehole?’

‘No. Hasn’t he told you about it?’

‘No, we don’t talk a lot.’

_ ‘Harry,’ _ he says and nudges my shoulder. ‘Might be time to, d’ya think?’

‘Probably,’ I admit, though I don’t know where we’d start. ‘You going to talk to Hannah?’

‘I s’pose,’ he says. ‘Eventually. When I feel brave enough.’

‘Tell me about it.’ 

He huffs a laugh. ‘Let’s hope this assignment lasts long enough for us to both get there.’

*

I spend my free period down on the Quidditch pitch, pelting back and forth on a shitty school broom ‘til I can’t feel my fingers. Ginny finds me there, a tiny black and red speck from my height but I still know it’s her. I almost ignore her, but the lunch bell has probably gone and I should eat something. Besides, Draco’s had Meggan all through Arithmancy and Runes, so he’s probably due some time off.

I spiral down, looping around Ginny in smaller and smaller circles ‘til I’m hovering in front of her. Getting off my broom seems like too much of a commitment and I don’t know what she’s here for. Maybe I’m going to want to storm off. I stay put and try and guess what she’s thinking from her general stance. It’s cold though, and she has her arms wrapped tight around her which could mean she’s in a snit, or just that she’s freezing her tits off.

‘Hermione dropped Leda in Arithmancy,’ she says, by way of greeting. ‘Ron sent me to tell you so you wouldn’t say anything stupid to upset her.’

‘Right. Anything else?’ I say, and wait. I find it odd Ginny would agree to play messenger for Ron while things are still awkward, if she didn’t have an ulterior motive. I don’t have to wait long to see I’m right. What comes out of her is a giant, emotional, frustrated girl-rant. Blaise is stupid and ignorant and terrible at looking after their egg. She has no idea why she thought he’d be a better boyfriend, she’s also stupid, and sorry, and so, so angry at herself. Her friends don’t understand because Blaise is  _ “like, so fit” _ and I’m apparently  _ “a lot more boring than they expected”, _ and she can’t tell any of our mutual friends because they’ll all say  _ “I told you so” _ and blab to me anyway, so she figured she might as well tell me directly. 

‘So, I’ve said my bit. Anything you want to add?’

‘I’m not getting back with you,’ I say. 

‘I’m not  _ trying _ to get back with you,’ she sighs at me. ‘I just miss you and I think maybe it’s been long enough we can be friends again. I mean, you’re married to a guy, I think that ship has sailed. Into some seriously gay waters, really. I mean, I knew, but, yeah, it’s definitely not what I saw coming. Malfoy?’ She’s talking very fast. I’d forgotten that about her.

‘We aren’t really married, we were just drunk.’ I try lying to her and it feels weird in my chest.

‘Sure, and you just act like an old married couple because it’s so  _ cool _ these days.’

‘We do not.’ I protest, weakly. So weakly she doesn’t even bother replying.

‘I think it’s nice. I mean, not that Malfoy’s nice, he’s a tosser, but he’s alright looking and he’s okay with you, so…’ She shrugs. ‘It’s fine.’

‘So glad you approve,’ I say, and dismount. This isn’t the fight I was afraid it’d be.

‘You should be. You definitely won this break-up. Ron’ll never let me hear the end of it.’ She follows me back to the broom shed and waits while I replace the gear. ‘You end up married and I end up with a guy who thinks it’s okay to make fun of house elves.’

‘Careful you don’t tell Hermione that.’

‘I’ve half a mind to, just to watch him cower,’ she says as we turn back to the castle.

I’m tempted to put in my two cents about Blaise fucking Zabini, but I remember what Neville said about the assignment lasting long enough for us to sort our shit out, and in order for that to happen, there needs to still be couples looking after eggs. 

‘He can’t be that bad?’ I say instead of listing all the ways he definitely  _ is _ that bad. ‘He’s passed all his exams, hasn’t he? You might just be hanging out with Hermione too much. Everyone looks stupid next to her.’

‘He’s so fussy about his hair though,’ she whines.

‘So am I,’ I say, in mock outrage, and she laughs. ‘And besides, maybe he’s just trying to look nice for you.’

‘Why are you defending him?’

‘Because I know you,’ I say. ‘You’re hot-headed and you expect a lot from people, and sometimes you just need a good rant to get it all out. Besides, you’re kind of intimidating, so maybe I feel sorry for him.’

‘I should tell him that, it’d really upset him,’ she muses.

‘Millicent’s doing a pretty good job of upsetting him already.’

‘Millicent is a goddess among women.’

‘She’s certainly among Parvati.’

‘I noticed,’ she says. ‘You eighth years almost need your own flag.’

‘Nobody else actually knows for certain that Draco and I are so inclined. Or Blaise, for that matter. He certainly kept that quiet.’

Ginny throws her head back and laughs. ‘You think being  _ married _ hasn’t completely chucked you two out of the closet?’

‘No?’ I realise I haven’t even thought about that, I’d just assumed everyone would think it was gossip-worthy but not particularly relevant to our sexuality since we weren’t openly dating.

‘You’re  _ married.' _

‘Yeah, but only because we were drunk.’

‘Yeah, you keep telling yourself that. But honestly,’ She gives me a fond smile as we reach the entrance hall. There’s sadness in there too, for us, and what might have been, but she’s trying, and it’s better than I thought it would be. ‘That’s not the vibe anyone else is getting from you two. “Cute old couple with crups” is closer to the general consensus.’

‘But—’

‘See you later, Harry.’

I stand frozen, staring after her, wondering how I could have got this all so wrong.


	11. Harry The Dirty Dog

**_Eighth Year Suite, Harry’s Room_ **

**_Early Evening_ **

**_Day 16_ **

‘Ginny came to talk to me today,’ I say. 

I’ve been keeping an eye on Draco since lunch, trying to see any evidence of what Neville thinks is true. Afternoon classes were no different than normal, really. Things were still slightly  _ off _ from last night, but we fell easily back into our usual habits (him being all touchy and me being shit at Charms). Now we have a couple hours ‘til dinner, and I figure I might as well see what he thinks of me and Ginny talking to each other again. If he gets jealous.

‘Hmm,’ is all he says, rummaging in his trunk for something. ‘Okay.’

‘She wants to be friends.’ 

He huffs a laugh.‘Of course she does,’ he says, and there it is, a tinge of disbelief. A speck of judgement.

‘She  _ does, _ and I don’t mind,’ I say, watching him give up looking for whatever it was and straighten up. ‘It’s not weird or anything.’ 

‘It’s only been two and a half weeks. It’s a little weird. Normally it’s a bit longer before someone realises they’ve made a horrible mistake and comes begging.’

I bank the fact that he thinks she’ll so obviously regret dumping me, and think of what I can say to get more out of him. Strategy isn’t my thing and neither is clever psychological prying. I try and hold his eye contact.

‘Are you worried she’s come to steal me back?’ 

He raises an eyebrow and turns to open the wardrobe, riffling through the clothes in there. Apparently that and a perfect view of his arse is all I’m going to get for an answer. I settle Meggan in her cot and sit on the bed, toeing off my shoes.

‘She’s not… attractive to me anymore,’ I say, watching for a reaction and seeing his shoulders tense for a moment. ‘Like, as a girl. Partner. I dunno. I don’t have feelings for her anymore.’

He picks my worn Arrows hoodie and slips it on over his shirt. ‘So. What did she have to say for herself, if she wasn’t begging for you to take her back?’ He comes closer, standing on the other side of the cot and running his fingers over the cashmere blanket. Meggan coos.

‘Just that she wants to be friends,’ I say. ‘And. Apparently Blaise isn’t the better option after all.’

‘I could’ve told you that,’ he says, a wry smile on his face.

Interesting. Yesterday I’d have assumed that the comment was due to his distaste for Blaise, but now, armed with what I know, it looks a little different. As does him wearing my clothes.

‘You could?’ I ask.

‘Now that I’ve experienced both of you,’ he smirks and comes to stand right against the mattress, nudging his way between my knees. ‘Yes, you’re better than him.’

I wonder if Neville’s wrong and it’s a purely sexual comparison. I wonder if he’s right and Draco’s hiding his own feelings behind lust. I wonder if he even knows he has feelings.

‘Well, that’s better than him being amazing and making me look even shitter to Ginny.’ 

He sighs. ‘Did she really ever say you weren’t any good or are you moping?’

‘She said,’ I pause for effect,  _ '“It wasn’t very good for either of us, was it?”' _

‘Harsh,’ he says, and pushes his fingers into my hair. ‘I’d get a great amount of satisfaction from telling her she’s wrong.’ He bends and drops a kiss on my forehead. ‘Though perhaps being a girl wasn’t doing her any favours. I’ve never preferred girls, myself.’

‘What about Pansy?’ I ask, because I need to talk about that too. ‘We all figured you’d end up married.’

‘She’s a friend, we owed it to ourselves to see if we worked together,’ he says. ‘Just in case we, as you say, ended up married. At that age, we thought we’d be sent off to marry whomever our parents fancied for us. Little did we know that half the Pureblood families would be dragged down in the war and we’d be lucky to marry anyone at all. She was still my first choice, though, right up until last year when she failed to see the long game and tried to hand you over like an idiot.’

‘Are you still expected to marry a girl, then?’ I ask. My voice comes out sounding hollow and I watch him look away. ‘Even now?’ 

‘I don’t know. Must we talk about this now, I’m tired,’ he says and climbs past me onto the bed.

‘It’s sort of important, don’t you think? Being that we’re married.’ 

‘Technically, yes, I suppose.’ He fluffs his pillow and flops down on it, lying on his back. 

‘Ginny says they all reckon we did it on purpose.’ I try and smile, turning so I can face him. ‘That we’re like an old married couple already. She thinks we’re cute.’

‘I suppose we are. Won’t they all be terribly disappointed when it’s over?’ he smiles back at me, and it’s as fake as my own and I wish one of us was brave enough to say something real. ‘Harry? What’s that look for?’

Okay, addendum, I wish  _ he _ was brave enough to say something real, because I, apparently, am absolute chicken shit. I grasp for something to say.

‘Oh. I— Er. I just realised I’ll have been orphaned, possessed, unofficially adopted by my godfather, orphaned again, killed, resurrected, married and divorced, all before I’m nineteen.’

‘Don’t forget you were also the Master of Death,’ he says, and lets his arm unfold onto the mattress between us so his fingers  _ just _ skim my thigh.

‘Oh, that. Yeah. How did you find out about that?’

‘My mother isn’t the sharpest crayon in the box when it comes to choosing a husband but she’s not completely unobservant.’ He reaches out and pats at my leg. ‘Come lie down.’

‘I don’t have the elder wand anymore. Or the resurrection stone,’ I say and climb up beside him. I decide to be brave and lie close, facing him.

‘You’re still their master, though, if the legends are true,’ he says, looking up at me from under his lashes.

‘Let’s pretend they aren’t so I can sleep at night.’

‘I can think of a better way to make you sleepy...’ he says and runs the back of his hand over my chest, my hip, grazing over the front of my trousers. His eyes follow his hand as it shifts back and forth, gently teasing my cock awake.

‘I haven’t had a shower yet, stop it.’

‘I like you dirty,’ he says and he looks sad and I realise that if it’s all true, if he does love me, and he thinks I’m only in it for the physical gain, then he’s in the same shitty place I was yesterday. Thinking he’s alone in having feelings, and that I’ll happily walk away without him, and it’s a shitty thing to do but I still can’t tell him and I feel guilty for it.

‘I literally spent an hour flying in these clothes, I’m gross,’ I say, taking his wrist, trying to give it back to him.

‘I don’t care,’ he says, and he rolls onto his side so we’re nose to nose and toe to toe. He’s in my face and he kisses me and I don’t know what to do.

I’m getting the feeling Neville was right, that Draco does like me, but I can’t shake the feeling he’s not telling me something important because that’s the second time I’ve asked him if he’s expected to marry a girl and continue the cursed fucking Malfoy line, and he’s avoided the question again. What if that’s been the reason all along that he doesn’t want to commit? What if it had nothing to do with his feelings at all? What if we’re doomed by more than my own fear, and no matter what I had the courage to say, it wouldn’t make a difference? What if he’d still leave because he had to?

Letting him be all over me when I need a shower isn’t going to help and to be honest, spending some time alone for a bit sounds like a good idea. ‘I care, stop it.’

‘Why? You smell sort of good, really, very manly.’ He moves to my neck, the softness of his lips and tongue dancing over the scrape of his stubble. 

It’s suddenly a lot harder to sound like I mean it when I say, ‘Get off me, and I can get cleaned up.’

‘I’d only get you filthy again, what’s the point?’ he says, and pushes his thigh between mine, pressing me back onto the bed, still mouthing at my neck. ‘I’m not a girl, Potter, I don’t need you to clean under your nails before we touch each other.’ He flexes his hips, grinding into me and my resolve crumbles. If he’s destined to be with a girl, and not happy about it, then who am I to deprive him of what he actually wants?

‘Fine, but let the record show that I tried to warn you.’

‘Noted,’ he says to my neck, his breath tickling my skin. ‘Besides, we haven’t done it in our clothes in a while, maybe quick and dirty is exactly what I want.’

‘Well then, good choice on the no shower,’ I say, and flip us so he’s pinned under me. If he wants this to be different from being with a girl, then I’m going to top him like I mean it. Which means doing all the things I was curious about before we started this. What was it like to be manhandled into position, thrown about a bit? What was it like to have your dick held tight with another, slathered with lube, someone else’s stubble against your jaw? What was it like to be opened up and pounded into the mattress with a rough voice in your ear, telling you you’re doing  _ so well _ ? And what about that same voice slowly losing it’s control, panting into the crook of your neck and biting down as it bursts into you, filling you up with it’s heat?

In short, what were the best things about your lover being male and strong and sweet and capable? What was great about the equity of sameness, the robust body and vulnerable heart?

So I’m relentless. Kissing him hard as we fumble with our trousers and wriggle out of them. A wandless, wordless  _ Lubrio _ that slaps down, cool and smooth between us and makes him shiver under me. I take us both in my hand and he gets no soft, easy build, no romance, just a whip fast hand and a short ride to  _ “oh fuck, yes” _ and a blossoming hickey on his neck.

When he’s basically a liquid, hissing and whispering in my ear, I let go and banish his pants to the end of the bed and pull his knee up over my hip. Three wandless swipes, three very familiar incantations by now, and a kiss and I ask him if he’s ready. He manages to nod and I manage to go slowly as I ease into him, one finger, then two. I duck down and lick at his balls as I add a third, knowing how good that feels.

When he’s relaxed and begging, I slide a pillow under his hips and thank Pansy in my head again, pummelling into him for as long as I can, ‘til I really am losing my control and panting into his skin. I feel his first tiny quake and let go the reins; instinct takes over and we crumble together into pile of spunk and sweat and hot breath, hips twitching helplessly.

It leaves me feeling wrung out and rent open and like I’ve given him something I can’t take back. Showing him what he’d be missing has the side-effect of seeing it for myself, and I can only hope he finds it as vital as I do.


	12. Goodnight Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one might be rough for some of you mums and dads out there. Take care.

**_Eighth Year Suite, Common Room_ **

**_Morning_ **

**_Day 17_ **

In the next three days, our three rival eggs all die. Buttercup’s the first to go and Neville is beside himself. A houseplant attacked her in the night and he blames himself, a sorry mess of tears as he begs Hermione to think of something to help. Hannah walks in, silently taking in the scene, and we see her melt a little, from our hidden corner of the common room, right before she stalks up to him and kisses him in front of everyone. She, all five foot of her, soothing this six-foot-two softie who was so terrified of disappointing her, with her tiny hands and her peppered kisses. It seems ironic that Neville wanted the assignment to keep going so they could be around each other some more, when it turned out ending it was that thing that really drew them together.

Fabergé is next, and we never hear the details, but there’s a suspicious dent in the door of the Prefects’ bathroom and the rumours suggest that egg dad was in there with another woman while mum was left at home with the baby. No one close to the couple will confirm or deny, but Ginny whispers the name of the alleged  _ other woman _ at breakfast and everyone stares at her so much she bursts into tears. In a telling lack of solidarity, the other Hufflepuffs don’t move in to comfort her.

On Friday, Ginny and Blaise have a very public break-up in the courtyard, right after classes, gathering a sizable crowd of seniors and juniors alike. It ends in a theatrical shoving of their baby into Blaise’s arms, which of course he fumbles, and the golden egg drops to the flagstones with a crack and a gasp from the crowd. Ginny doesn’t flinch, just whips her hair around and stalks off inside, leaving him to deal with it. Draco makes a quiet joke about Blaise being a bit useless with his hands in general and his voice in my ear is like… something I need, desperately. Close, and always combined with the tickle of his breath and the heat of his shoulder pressed against me. But every time an egg drops we lose time in this arrangement, and I still haven’t figured anything out, and this was the last one.

After a moment, someone else does the same math I did as soon as I heard Gin shouting, and yells out that we’ve won. Draco and I are congratulated with far more enthusiasm than it warrants. I look over at him at one point and he seems completely baffled at the attention. When his eyes find mine I just shrug and point discreetly to my forehead and he gives me a wry grin. I like to think it holds a long overdue apology for thinking I ever enjoyed being famous.

When someone pulls out a camera and yells something about the yearbook, we’re shoved together, Meggan in her carrier, peeking out of Draco’s cloak and me with two satchels over my shoulder, straps tangled and robes pulled askew. We aren’t ready for the first flash, but we have ourselves mostly arranged for the second. I’m not expecting a third, and I can only assume Draco isn’t either, because he pulls me closer, long fingers wrapping around my neck, and he kisses me hard on the side of the head. My eyes must be bug-wide when the flash goes the third time because there’s a moment where I can’t see properly, and I just hear a chorus of titillated jeers and whoops and one very familiar voice yelling ‘get a room’, because that’s just how Ron rolls, really.

‘That seems a weird way to end this, but okay,’ I say, quietly, because the general populace has seen enough for one day and I don’t need anyone asking what’s ending.

Draco gives me an odd look but doesn’t get a chance to answer properly ‘til we’re moving again, in the cloisters and not in much danger of being overheard. ‘Who says I’m ending it?’

‘Wasn’t that the agreement — for the duration of the assignment?’ I say. My voice comes out surprisingly calm considering I’m pretty sure I’m falling apart from the inside.

‘It’s  _ our _ agreement,’ he growls. ‘We can alter it if it suits us. I was under the impression you were enjoying yourself. Particularly last night.’

‘I am, but I was under the impression you were doing all of this because it was a nice, tidy, convenient way to get off, annoy Blaise, and do well in the assignment.’ 

And avoid getting attached to anyone you couldn’t marry. Who couldn’t give you a real baby and not just an enchanted egg. Like me.

'You think I was hooking up with you because of an  _ egg?' _ he hisses at me, and Meggan starts to whimper.

I can’t help rolling my eyes. 'Because of what the egg represented.'

'You think I did it to pass a class?' He stops and grabs my arm, and I stumble, the weight of both satchels throwing me off-kilter.

‘No, I—’ Fuck fuck fuck. ‘This isn’t coming out right. I think you did it because the finite time frame meant you didn’t have to commit to anything, or deal with anything messy or emotional that would get in the way of your life, no matter how you felt,’ I say. 

‘You think I can’t  _ commit _ to anything?’

'I—' 

‘No.’ He stabs his finger at me, and Meggan lets out a wail. ‘Potter, you’re an idiot. In at least seven different ways, right now. But let’s just think back a few weeks. I said, then, that it would be the duration of our living arrangements. Not just the assignment. And we still live together, and Meggan is still alive, so it seems a little callous of you to be trying to wiggle out of it the second you might see an out.’

‘I’m not looking for an out,’ I say, far too loud, my temper rising at the hideous injustice of his words.

‘Then what the fuck are you doing?’

‘I thought that was the plan, okay?’

‘Plans change, people change,’ he says and drops my arm. ‘No wonder you were so useful to Dumbledore, you never even  _ try _ to get what you want, you just do what you’re told, without even thinking about it.’

I’m staring, fuming, my teeth clenched so hard it hurts, and I’m trying to think of a reason not to hex him when a Patronus bursts through the wall beside us and Professor Van Mill’s milky-white goose honks at us to meet her in her office on the second floor. I don’t think I have it in me to cast a reply right now, so I just turn on the spot and start heading her way. I hear Draco fall into step behind me, Meggan’s cries subduing only slightly as he murmurs to her, his soft voice calming her and making me feel inexplicably worse.

*

Van Mill is thrilled and seems to be ignoring the tension radiating off the two of us. Meggan is grizzly and quite unhappy when Draco hands her over. He twitches as if to snatch her back when Van Mill strips her of her cashmere blanket and plonks her unceremoniously in the cold-looking brass bowl on her weird, gadgety set of scales. She swishes her stumpy little wand over the fake baby that’s kept us up at night, and side by side for the last few weeks and a sad sort of regret comes over me. Draco’s gone very quiet too, and I want to reach out for him as she ignores our baby’s cries and keeps running her diagnostics, clucking curiously at the tape of incomprehensible data tickering out of the machine.

‘You’ve done well, boys,’ she says, and that tone of surprise is still grating. ‘I bet everyone’s a bit shocked.’

‘Not really,’ I say. ‘We’re both pretty good at keeping people alive.’

‘Harry, dear, it’s just an enchanted egg, not a person.’ Van Mill gives me a look like I might be a bit special and I want to hurt her.

‘She has a personality,’ Draco says, gaze locked on Meggan still.

‘I’m sure she does,’ Van Mill says, off-hand and back to her numbers already. ‘Alright, you end with a…’ She tears the coil of paper tape from the machine and straightens up. ‘Goodness, ninety-four percent.’

‘And we won,’ I point out, because she’s still acting like we’re completely incompetent and this is some sort of miracle.

‘It’s not about winning, Harry,’ she says, head cocked with a condescending smile and I’m almost glad, because I feel like I’m losing, right now. And she’s being such a cold bitch about the whole thing I can feel my loyalties realigning so that no matter how angry I was at Draco a few minutes ago, I’m prepared to punch her in the face and get myself expelled just to please him. And it’s nice to get a sense of that again. It makes me brave and I reach out for his hand, hoping he’s not still angry with me.

She sees the movement and her mouth twitches as our fingers lace together, and I want so much for her to say something horrendous so I can fuck her up and tell McGonagall she provoked me, as I see myself out the front doors and off the grounds. It’d be worth it.

‘Right, then, you two are done here, you’re dismissed,’ she says and turns back to her desk, just as Draco asks,

‘But what happens to—’

And before he can finish asking the question she swishes her wand and the sad wail of our baby, who just needed a hug after being poked and prodded and sat in a cold hard basin, just… cuts off. Dead. Silent.

His fingers crush mine and I let them. I let the pain ground me, and I let his grip hold me still, and when he tugs at my arm, seconds or minutes later, I let him drag me away. The echo of our child’s silenced cry replays over and over again and when I try and pin it down so I can stare it in the face, it dissolves into mist and haunts me again from out of sight.

‘Draco,’ I say, my voice shaky and cold.

‘I know,’ he says, ‘but you can’t.’

‘But how could she—’ I cut myself off. Did she kill her? If she wasn’t really alive? Does it matter when I feel like I’ve lost something anyway, when I feel like it’s been ripped from my gut and thrown in the corner?

We make it halfway down the corridor before he drags me into an alcove and shoves me up against a tapestry, covering my mouth with his own and never once letting go of my hand. Tiny spears poke at my back as the painstakingly stitched  _ Neanderthals Taking on a Single Mage _ turn their attention to me as I crush their village under my weight. Draco is unforgiving and constant and my breath is all but gone by the time he pulls away.

‘Snape’s rooms,’ he says and I nod, because I haven’t remembered how to speak yet. And then he leans in and whispers in my ear, a low, desperate growl,  _ ‘We need to fuck,’ _ and I have to close my eyes.

My hand is still in his, both our bags still slung over my shoulder, as we descend through passages I didn’t know existed. It’s a weird time of day, people are waiting for dinner, too tired from the week to be wandering and too averse to the cold to be sitting around outside the common rooms. I only see a handful of people, all from the opposite ends of a corridor, or a staircase above, and before we pass anyone who might be able to recognise what’s going on, we’ve reached Snape’s hidden staircase and fallen through his door. I let our bags drop to the floor, and Draco slides the baby carrier off, tossing it into the fireplace like it hurts him.

When I move towards the couch, he grabs my hand and I wonder if we’re going to do it on the floor instead, and honestly the thought of a hard scratchy rug under me right now is pretty much in line with what I feel like I deserve.  _ Can’t even save an egg, _ that impossible part of me says. Instead Draco takes a step toward the bedroom.

‘Let’s at least be comfortable,’ he says, and I’m about to argue, protest, when I remember he’s part of this too and he deserves better than a cold floor. Even if better is still only Snape’s bed and whatever weird greasy state it’s in. Maybe a  _ Scourgify _ will be enough to appease the weird feeling in my teeth at the thought of slipping under his sheets.

‘Wow,’ is all I can say when Draco pushes the door open and another, far larger, grander, fireplace flares to life.

The room is weirdly beautiful, with dark polished wood and charcoal velvet hangings on the bed. The carpet is dark grey, and the walls a deep green with a flocked pattern of trees, floor to ceiling, like a soft forest. There are large paintings on the wall of more trees, animals scurrying from our view. It’s enough of a surprise to distract me from my black mood and I’m still for a moment, staring.

‘Enough, Potter,’ Draco says eventually, and he’s on me again, hands freely roaming now, under my robes, my shirt, pulling them up and over my head, letting them drop to the floor. He steps in for another kiss, grappling with the front of my trousers. ‘In the bed or on it?’ he asks as he pushes them to the floor.

‘It’s cold,’ I say.

‘Fine,’ is alI I get before he’s swiping his wand in an oddly complex series of movements at the huge black bed, and we’re watching a cloud of dust puff up from the ruffling covers and direct itself into the fire with a soft swoosh. ‘In,’ he says, his hands at his throat for a second before dropping his cloak to the floor. 

I move to the bed and climb in, and the sheets feel crisp, unused, and I wonder if the elves have changed them since that night, almost a year ago, not knowing he wouldn’t be coming back again. When I turn to him, Draco’s naked, standing in the light of the fire and watching me.

‘Are you okay?’ I ask, and he nods, slowly, like he’s trying to save this image, of me in this bed, in this secret, safe place. Like maybe all of what he’s said about it being our agreement and our choice is a lie, and he knows this is it, the last time we’ll get to be together.

‘Are you?’ he asks, and I don’t know what to tell him because I’m not okay, for so many reasons, and they’re not all simple. 

It seems pointless to lie though, and even if I tried I don’t think he’d believe me. ‘Not really,’ I say.

‘Good,’ he says, and he walks around the bed and climbs in beside me, the covers sitting low across his lap. He’s not close, we aren’t touching, but I can smell him and he’s here and I’m not completely alone in my own turmoil. ‘I was lying, this feels horrible.’

‘We don’t have to do anything,’ I say. ‘We can just… hide.’

‘I want to feel something else,’ he says, and leans toward me, propping himself on one elbow and splaying his hand across my belly. ‘Come on.’

It’s too familiar in some ways, the whole idea of it. Gin and I had tumbled back together in the sleepless nights that followed the end of the war, desperately clinging to anything more powerful than grief, even if it was only for a moment.

So I lie next to him, and I let my head rest on the pillow, and I hook one ankle over his. He looks down at me like I’m the one who was taken from him, and there’s a ferocity in his gaze that pokes at all the feelings I’m hiding from him. I could lie here and imagine he was thinking about how much he needs me in his life forever, how he hopes I’ll stay even though our daughter, our only legitimate connection, is gone. How maybe it’s enough that she brought us together, that even though her time here was short, we’ll never forget her because she made us what we are. I imagine he’s thinking that what we are isn’t fragile and temporary and merely the cracked shell of a relationship that has nothing inside but sadness. 

It makes my feelings for him feel even bigger, thick and spongy and expanding silently into the warm, citrus-and-ash-scented space between us. Sliding under the covers and the pillows and leaking onto the floor. I imagine them as vapour, hanging over us, billowing out of my chest ‘til we’re lying in a cloud of my embarrassing lack of self-control. My failing as an adult to compartmentalise, to stick to a simple agreement, to keep from falling, stupid and in love into the arms of someone who has already made it quite clear that we’re destined to be parted. No matter how he feels. That we’ll never be more than what he said he wanted, even if I know he loves me back. Because he’s proud, and controlled, and seemingly destined to marry someone else once he can extricate himself from me. And a little thing like loving each other isn’t going to make a difference. Maybe he knows how to fall out of love.

His hand slides up over my ribs and his head comes down and he kisses me. It’s awkward and feels oddly forced. He mustn’t like it either, because he pushes me onto my back and moves over me, trying again. The angle is easier, more natural, and the soft press of our mutually feeble arousal is almost nice. He grinds into me a little and it’s okay, but I can’t help thinking about how we’ve never had to do this before, push ourselves together in the hope it’ll start to feel good soon. 

He moves to my neck, kissing and nibbling and sucking on my skin, everything just a little too hard, too sharp, without the numbing blanket of pleasure to ease things along. If this is truly it, I should be taking proper advantage of him, building another vault in my wank bank at least, making another memory for the pensieve. 

I take one hand off his back and cast a silent  _ Lubrio _ at the space between us. He starts, and huffs a laugh against the wet skin of my neck.

‘A little warning next time?’ 

‘Sorry,’ I say and tilt my hips up, seeing if it’s going to help. The awkwardness is still there but the raw sensation is good enough, and he gasps with me, and kisses me on the mouth again, and we slide into a slow, easy rhythm, breathing each other’s air and clinging to one another’s shoulders as the feeling builds. 

‘Open me up?’ he whispers, and I nod, casting the charms, one, two, three, same as always. He shivers at the sensation and scoots up the bed a little, arching his back so I can reach better, knees wide. 

He’s tense and tight and stubborn and I know I must be hurting him but he refuses to slow down or admit defeat, so I make him kiss me and I run the fingers of my free hand through his hair and tell him he’s fit as fuck and I can’t wait to be inside him and that we should come here more often, and I feel like maybe it works a bit, because it gets easier and I start to believe myself that I want this. When he starts to push back against my fingers, grinding his erection against my own I think that maybe this might be okay.

‘Ready?’ I ask, once he’s starting to pant in my ear and my wrist is about to drop off.

‘Get on top of me,’ he says, and slides off on his stomach, wrapping his arms around a pillow and looking back at me over his shoulder. He’s beautiful, his face flushed and open, his hair a tangled mess from my fingers and the pale curve of his back, stark against the black linens. I could stare at him for days.

We haven’t done it like this before, and it takes a minute for me to get settled between his thighs and inside him. The angle is good, I decide after a few goes, it’s deep. I like being this close to him, covering him with my whole body. I rest my forehead on his shoulder and keep rolling my hips, breathing heavy against his skin.

‘Harder,’ he says, arching his back again so his bum’s in the air. ‘I want to fucking feel it.’

I wrap one arm around his chest and pull him toward me as I thrust, getting deeper at least. I try and snap my hips a bit more, and he groans his approval into the pillow. It’s hard work though, and I can feel myself tiring, even as he opens his mouth to demand, ‘Faster.’

‘Hang on.’ I can’t do that in this position, so I reclaim my arm and push up, sitting back on my heels. He looks over his shoulder, glaring like the spoilt little shit that he is.

‘Pass me a pillow,’ I say, trying to catch my breath. He chucks one at my head and I slap him gently on the arse. ‘Hips up.’

He looks dubious, but he obeys, and I shove it under his pelvis so he’s tilted a bit, at a better height. I move to straddle his thighs and tease him a little with the head of my cock, just because I can, and if he’s going to be demanding, I’m going to be contrary. I push in a tiny bit and pull out again, in, out, waiting for him to get pissy and yell at me. He just glares over his shoulder, so I ram into him, fully seating myself in one movement, and his jaw softens and his eyes close and I realise what he really wants. Something that feels bigger than what he’s feeling in his heart. This time when I lean over him, I keep my weight on my knees and one arm, the other hand wrapping around his shoulder, right where it meets his neck. I draw back as far as I can and pound into him, again and again, ‘til he’s gasping and writhing and arching his back to take me in.

He curses into the pillow, loud, and it barely muffles it at all. Seeing him like this, so loose and unrestrained, is a strange turn-on of its own. I made him like this, I got him here, scattered and animalistic, his body begging for more. I shift so I can grab his other shoulder with my free hand and he turns his head and I see the shine of wetness on his cheek, his eyes screwed shut and I panic and I freeze.

‘Don’t stop,’ he growls at me. ‘Fuck me harder.’

‘Did I hurt you? Are you—’

‘I said don’t stop,’ he begs and turns his head into the pillow again. ‘Please don’t stop.’

‘Okay, okay.’ I try and find my rhythm again but it’s gone and I feel like I’m the worst person in the world, because he wasn’t crying about me, or anything I did, or even him. He was just  _ hurting _ and he was letting it out, and I went and ruined it. I feel myself go back to the slow, easy rhythm we had before, and I lay myself on top of him, holding onto him, kissing his shoulder, the back of his neck, breathing into his hair. I don’t stop though, even when I feel myself getting close and my mind wars with whether or not that’s even appropriate. I just warn him, and he snakes a hand under himself, and I hear him whisper a lubrication charm into his fist and he hisses, shivering, and the rustle of the sheets intensifies ‘til he’s gasping and I’m barely managing to hold myself together. ‘Fuck,’ I breathe into his hair. ‘Draco I’m—’

And that’s it, I’m done, my hips curling into him of their own accord, and I’m shuddering on top of him. He makes a desperate, broken sound and I feel him convulse, twitching, a string of curses ground into the pillow, ‘til we’re both left panting and sweaty in the dark.

A while later, once we’ve cleaned up and thrown another log on the fire, when we’re lying on our backs, gazing vacantly upwards, hands clasped and legs tangled, he asks me, ‘Do you think everyone felt like this, when their eggs died?’

‘How could they?’ I say without even thinking.

He says nothing, just turns and looks at me, pale and lovely in the firelight.

‘It’s different for us,’ I say. ‘There was more than just Meggan. It was— us. We got all mixed up with it and I didn’t realise how much we’d become like—’ I pause, knowing it’s such a melodramatic thing to say. So typical of an orphan, to see things that aren’t there.

‘Like family?’ he says, and I nod. 

‘Is that mad?’

He sighs and squeezes my hand. ‘No, Harry, it’s not.’


	13. How Do Lions Say I Love You?

**_Eighth Year Suite, Common Room_ **

**_Late Evening_ **

**_Day 19_ **

No one brings up the end of the assignment and what it means to our living arrangement once we get back to the common room. I barely see Ron and Hermione all evening; they disappear to their room early, and maybe they’re doing what we just did, farewelling something precious while they still can. 

There’s talk of going into Hogsmeade soon and the party-like atmosphere of us all being free of responsibility again could probably become a proper party if we can get something to drink. Millicent is leading the charge, so maybe we’ll actually make it out of the common room, though when I look around, we all seem pretty entrenched in our seats. Maybe we’ll just sit here.

Draco is quiet still, curled up at the other end of my couch with a magazine, and he nudges my hip with his foot when someone mentions alcohol again. Technically we have what’s left from a few weeks ago, but also, technically, we aren’t meant to have alcohol on school grounds, so… I shrug. I certainly don’t mind giving away the gin, but there’s not a lot left, definitely not enough for the whole group. There’s my spiced rum too, though Draco’s fancy whiskey is probably a bit too precious for sharing like this. I should probably use up the rum, actually, while we’re still together and I can enjoy it — I can’t imagine drinking is as fun when it’s a gift from your former lover and a horrid reminder of happier times.

It doesn’t take long for someone to suggest spin the bottle, or for Neville to quirk one wholesome eyebrow and wonder aloud what the point is if we’re mostly all coupled up already. 

I have to counter his point with my own, because it’s probably time I stopped thinking of myself as part of a couple, just in case. ‘Maybe that’s the fun? It’s innocent, no commitment, just a laugh. Doesn’t have to mean anything.’

I decide not to look over to see what Draco makes of that, because I reckon it’ll show on my face that using the word  _ commitment _ was a tiny dig at him. Doesn’t stop Neville from glancing over at him, though, and I want to know what he saw.

‘If we’re all going to be kissing each other, I’m going to need a proper drink, Draco sighs, and stretches, dropping the magazine on the floor. ‘Anyone else got anything stashed or are we stuck with Potter’s girly rum and a meagre splash of gin?’

‘I have schnapps,’ Parvati announces, and everyone turns to her. ‘What?’ she says. ‘Do you think Indian girls don’t know how to drink? I’m from  _ Manchester.' _

‘I’m from Kent, and I have quite a lot of Vodka?’ Hannah says and Neville’s jaw drops.

‘You do?’ he asks.

‘It’s in my room, come help me find it,’ she says with a grin, and Parvati rolls her eyes.

‘The schnapps is in my knicker drawer, can you grab it?’ she calls after them as they disappear upstairs. They don’t reply. ‘They’re never going to come back, are they?’ She sighs. ‘I should’ve run and got it myself.’

‘We can tide you over,’ I say, and ask Draco if he wants his fancy unshareable whiskey as well, which, of course, he does.

As I walk down the boys corridor I hear a comment I probably wasn’t meant to, about our domesticity and how cute it is. Contrary to what it would’ve done a few days ago, it leaves me feeling shitty and the solace of drinking takes on a different sort of promise.

*

The game is put off for some standard binge-drinking warm ups to soften the mood and dispel any awkwardness. Neville and Hannah are back unexpectedly quickly and we start with a dangerously large collection of bottles. Cups are transfigured out of various items of abandoned stationery and someone has managed to procure a two litre bottle of Coke from somewhere to go with the vodka. It’s rationed fiercely, though, and tastes almost no better than straight vodka does. It does manage to temper the rate at which we all fall into a happy stupor though, so we’re comfortably capable of both consent and spontaneous fits of giggles when Millicent declares it “time”.

She explains the usual Slytherin house rules and gathers us into more of a circle, having each of us place our wands in the middle, lengthwise, around the bottle ‘til they’re almost touching, end to end. "It eliminates sneaky behaviour” she says, because no one can nudge the bottle into a favourable position with magic, and there’s less arguing about whether it was pointed to someone or not. She’s a bit wrong, of course, because I can absolutely move an almost empty bottle without my wand, but it seems arrogant to bring it up unnecessarily.

The first few rounds are pretty safe. Millicent’s first spin points to Lisa’s slim length of birch with unicorn hair and Lisa firecalls her boyfriend back home to check it’s okay first. She gets told she can do whatever she would find acceptable for him to do, which puts a devilish smile on her face that scares me a little. (I’m pretty sure it was her who said Draco and I were “cute”, and I expect it’s at least partly to do with the fact that Draco’s really quite fit and she thinks  _ he’s _ cute.) It’s a decent overall rule for all the couples, though, and we all agree to it. In a telling turn of events, several people look pointedly at us when we don’t volunteer our approval immediately. We must exude some sort of monogamy, even from different ends of the couch. We aren’t even touching.

Parvati takes the bottle next and kisses Dean. On her left, Terry kisses Hannah, Neville kisses Hannah, Hannah kisses Dean again, and Lisa gets to spin and ends up kissing Hannah, who swears she isn’t doing this on purpose. Draco stretches his legs out and burrows his feet under my arse. Dean kisses Parvati, Michael kisses Millicent, then I do, then Draco kisses Neville which is awkward and hilarious, and Millicent spins and finally gets to have a go at her own girlfriend, and it’s sweet, really. But then Parvati kisses Draco and Millicent laughs and I try to, but it’s hard to see someone like her touch him. Neville, I trust — he’s besotted with Hannah, and he’s my friend. Parvati is pretty and likes boys and she’s a Pureblood. To her credit, she’s also quickly off him. 

It gets around to Dean while Draco is tugging his foot free and impishly sliding it behind up back, his fluffy socks tickling my skin. The only way I can find to stop him is to pull his feet onto my lap and hold them there while he wriggles. Dean spins and kisses Millicent. She terms it “not bad for a bloke”, before he hands over to his left again, to Michael, who’s sitting on my right, leaning against the end of the couch. I’m too busy thinking about it being my turn next to realise when his spin has landed on me and I have to do something  _ now. _

‘Harry?’ Michael asks. He’s kneeling, facing me, and I hope he doesn’t take my confusion for horror. ‘Sorry?’ he says.

‘No, it’s fine, I was—’

‘Daydreaming about your husband, Darling?’ Draco smirks and I close my eyes and Michael must think I do it for him and not because I’m exasperated, because he leans in then, quickly, and there’s a girlish “whoop” from the circle after a couple of seconds pass and he’s still on me. Even then, I’ve barely recovered from the surprise before he pulls away, flushed and incapable of looking me in the eye. I force myself to wonder if there’s anything in it, because objectively, he’s not a bad option for when all this shit with Draco falls apart. Clever, good looking and not too much taller than me. I’m half hoping I’ll land on him with my spin because his lips were soft and he smells pretty normal and maybe it’ll make me feel better to have a foot out the door already.

What I wasn’t hoping for, after pushing Draco’s feet away and leaning out of my seat to swipe at the bottle, was for it to land on a very familiar length of hawthorn. But it does.

Instead of a whoop there’s a collective  _ aww, _ like we’re adorable kittens and far too soft and domestic to surprise anyone. It winds me up a little, because I don’t really understand why all the girls seem to think it’s cute when two guys are into each other — it’s almost like fetishising, except it barely seems sexual. It’s more like they never expected the big, nasty boys to have feelings and any evidence we’ve managed to do so without female help is somehow worth cooing over.

So I do what I do every time life pisses me off — jump into something stupid and brave with zero consideration of what’s going to happen after. 

I can tell he’s not expecting much by the look on his face when I manage to get myself back onto the couch. He’s probably saying  _ “inelegant as ever, there, Potter” _ in his head. Well, fuck it. I stalk toward him on all fours, knees sinking into the couch cushions as my hands find the armrest behind his head. His expression goes neutral, which means he’s freaking out and doesn’t want anyone to know. I’ve surrounded him, hovering above with my thighs either side of his legs and my wrists almost touching his shoulders. He’s trapped. If he protests, he looks like a wuss and if he calls my bluff and tries to sex it up, I might just do it. He knows me.

So all I do, at first, is say ‘Hi’, and lean a little closer. 

And then I kiss him.

Properly.

Like I would if we were alone, except we aren’t, we’re in a room full of people and they’re all watching.

Silently. Waiting. Wondering, maybe, if they’ve had it wrong all along, and I reckon they probably have. They can’t be expecting the softest kiss I’ve ever delivered, or for Draco’s eyelids to flutter shut, or for his hand to drift to my jaw, holding me there as he opens his mouth under mine, and rises up in his seat. I know they can’t, because I didn’t and I’ve kissed him before.

I don’t know how long it lasts, but I feel his tongue against mine and a gasp from the circle and the distinct sound of the common room door closing before I bring my lips together and pull back. His pupils are blown wide and he looks... startled.

‘I’m never going to get my room back, am I?’ comes a voice from the entryway and we turn simultaneously, our bodies still frozen in position, to see Blaise standing there with Ginny’s friend. She has her tiny hand wrapped around his arm and I reckon  _ ex-friend _ is probably more accurate at this stage.

‘’If you want your own room, I can swap with you?’ Lisa says. ‘I hate being alone, this castle is too creepy.’ 

‘I am also ok with that,’ Millicent states, though she’s still very much looking at me and Draco.

I retreat to my corner of the couch, just as Hannah pipes up, saying she doesn’t mind sharing with Lisa if Parvati wants to move in with Mill, and a discussion about whether or not it’s too soon takes off, giving me and Draco a short respite. I look over at him and he seems… I don’t know. Maybe annoyed. I can’t tell if he’s plotting revenge or plotting what he’ll do once he can kiss me again. Maybe they’re even the same thing. Who knows what he’s thinking.

Eventually the hubbub settles, Blaise and his new friend sit down and we get back to drinking, though we switch to truth or dare. Both bottles of vodka run out some time around midnight. The rum is suspiciously empty as well, though I don’t remember doing it myself. The gin is still a quarter-full when Hannah dares everyone to go to bed because it’s after one, and we all grumble and mutter and crawl out of our seats with the finesse of pensioners.

As we’re tidying up the bottles and the crisp packets, and Parvati is trying to un-transfigure all the cups, Millicent hands me a pile of cushions and gathers a pile of her own, shoving me toward the storage cupboard. We’ve never put them back in there before and I wonder what her real objective is. She doesn’t beat around the bush with it.

‘Harry,’ she says, her voice low as she dumps her pile on the floor and flings the door open, hiding us from the room. ‘If you like that boy, you have to tell him, because he is putty in your hands and if you hurt him I’ll kill you.’

‘What?’ The irony of this hits me like a brick. If anyone’s at risk of being hurt, it’s definitely me.

‘Don’t “what” me, you’re not an idiot,’ she snaps, loading her cushions in. ‘Not really. But if you don’t want him, and you lead him on, and his tiny icicle heart gets broken, I will hex you until you’ve the brain power of a skrewt.’

‘Okay...?’ 

‘I mean it,’ she says, taking my cushions and jamming them into the cupboard. ‘I will end you. I will make you sorry you ever touched him. I will make your dick cry fat, bloody tears.’

‘Alright, alright. I’ll tell him.’

‘Tell him  _ tomorrow,' _ she hisses. ‘I’m going to follow up at dinner, so you better do it.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I’ll talk to him.’ Fucking hell. Of all the ways for this to come to a head… a well-meaning friend is gonna be our downfall.

‘He likes you.’

‘I know,’ I wonder if it’s worth keeping the truth in and the rum decides for me. ‘I like him too, you know.’

‘Why doesn’t  _ he _ know that?’

‘He said he didn’t want a boyfriend.’

‘He’s a Slytherin. He gets what he wants whether he lies about it or not. Look at you. You’re fucking  _ married. _ Don’t for a second think that isn’t exactly what he had in mind.’ She snaps the door closed and smiles to cover up our secret  _ chat, _ a startling contrast to the violence of her previous declaration.

‘Night then,’ I say to her back as she flounces away and drags Parvati upstairs.

‘You right?’ Neville says from my elbow. When I turn, he’s right next to me, looking down with an expression of mild concern. I nod, not convinced but not wanting him to worry.

‘See you at breakfast, then,’ I say and give him a hug, because I fucking need one and I’m full of rum and he’s  _ Neville. _ Bless him, he pats me firmly on the back and doesn’t say another word.

*

The next day is weird, the game and Mill’s words hanging over me. Draco is quiet. Everything is quiet. Meggan’s absence is more obvious in the morning light than it had been last night. We can shower whenever we want, come and go as we please, and for the first time in weeks, wake up to the sun and not her squawking for attention.

In fact, when I wake up, Draco’s not even there. He strolls in after a few minutes in a towel and I see what it’d be like to actually be married to him, and not just... bound. He’s beautiful and glistening wet and oblivious to my gaze as he towel-dries his hair. 

He’d fallen asleep quickly last night, almost as soon as I  _ Noxed _ the lights, curled against my side and snoring lightly while I stared up at the hangings of my bed, wondering how I was going to tell him how I felt. And, actually, as I went over everything Mill said, wondering if I still felt exactly the same, having heard it. Wondering if Millicent knew what he really wanted from me or if he’d not told  _ her _ anything either and she was guessing. Wondering if she knew what was expected of him in regard to marriage and heirs and whether I needed to be replaced with someone more appropriate. Was she on my side or his? Did she want me to tell him so that we could be together or so he’d see what’d happened and make an exit before it got messy? It would’ve been a comfort, if the latter were true, in not having to room with him afterward, but the girls had managed to sort themselves out last night so that we didn’t have to move. 

‘Why are you staring?’ he says, running his fingers through his hair to neaten it.

‘Because you’re wet and naked?’ I say, because I can’t really ask him what Mill meant if I don’t even know what difference it makes yet. 

‘And yet you’re still wearing all your clothes?’

‘Come here,’ I say, because getting off is going to be easier than thinking, or talking, and if I get the chance to say something, I’d rather he was all soft and happy for it.

He walks over to the bed, towel in his hand, ‘til his thighs touch the edge of the mattress, right by my pillow. His dick skims the sheet. He looks down at it, then at me. ‘Well?’ he says.

_ Oh. _

There’s something odd about being asked to do something selfless. It’s a compliment in a way, a testament to times you’ve done it before and not been disappointing. But it’s also a little… degrading? Like maybe that’s  _ all _ you’re good for. And my insides are already a mess of questions to be dealing with that.

I’m stuck, staring at his dick dripping water on my bedding, wondering if I can do this, knowing today might be our last day together and wanting to go out with my head held high. I don’t want the last time to be me sucking him off and thinking about breaking up with him. And would I even want that — to break up? Do I want to be alone? Even if he had somehow intended for us to be married and, I dunno, Slytherined it into happening? Because I feel like I trusted him right up until Millicent Fucking Bulstrode declared our marriage to not be the mistake I always felt it must have been. I don’t know what to do with that information.

‘Or not, no big deal,’ he says and turns away, reaching for some clothes and dropping his towel on the floor.

‘Sorry,’ I say, because that long a pause had to sting a little. ‘I—’

‘You what, Potter?’ 

‘We should talk about this. Our arrangement. What we want it to be. Since we don’t look like we’ll be moving rooms anytime soon. It’s not what either of us signed up for.’

‘Okay,’ he says, pulling on a pair of pale jeans over his pants. ‘Then talk. Tell me what you want it to be.’

‘I need to go to the loo. And shower,’ I say, because putting it off seems like a less bad idea than asking him if he’s been manipulating me for some reason, and not being dressed enough to escape from the answer if I don’t like it. ‘Give me ten minutes. We can get breakfast.’

‘Right,’ he says, and his voice is sharp, cold. ‘I’ll meet you down there,’ he snaps and swipes up a hoodie that’s been left on Ron’s bed, mine probably, and he leaves. Just walks out. Doesn’t even close the door.

Fuck.

*

I spend too long in the shower thinking about what to say. Our conversation over breakfast is brief. I sit down, he grumbles that I took too long, and then someone else sits too close to us and we have to stop talking altogether. I should eat something; my stomach is rumbling and I don’t want to feel sick later. Except I kind of feel sick now because he won’t look at me. 

‘Shall we go?’ I say and instead of answering he just stands up and starts to walk away. 

Of all the things I thought of in the shower, this is the second worst scenario, and I haven’t even told him anything yet. I grab a danish and hurry after him, glad he’s so tall and so fair and so noticeable amongst the crowd of other students. I catch him without too much trouble, which gives me hope, and I want to give  _ him _ some, just in case Millicent’s got it all wrong, so I say, ‘It’s nothing bad. I just think— We should be clear about things.’

‘Fine,’ he says, his tone clipped and his mouth set. ‘Snape’s quarters.’

‘Yeah. Okay,’ I say and I have to work extra hard to keep up with him and his long legs, which is nice because it means he’s been very considerate about pacing himself before, but also a little worrying because he really isn’t being like that now.

We arrive without incident, though, and he throws himself at the couch. I've spent enough time living with a spoiled child, growing up, to recognise the beginning of a tantrum, and it pisses me off. I'm not in the wrong and he has no right to be sulky with me. He's the one who's possibly been a sneaky shit, insinuating we'd got married accidentally when maybe, apparently, he’d intended that all along. And fuck knows what that says about our relationship, about him, if he  _ planned _ to fucking  _ marry me _ and we'd barely been messing around a  _ week. _ Maybe we should start by talking about  _ his _ feelings.

It clicks into place then, that I've been told off for not telling him how  _ I _ feel when there’s a very real possibility he’s been hiding how  _ he _ feels for even longer. How long do you need to like a person to want to marry them? To plan for it? Do you need to like them at all, or will sharing your assets be enough to drag your family name back out of the mud? 

Holy shit… is it that? Harry Potter will save the Malfoys from being cast out of civilised society? His lawyers got onto me pretty fast and he was  _ oh so careful _ to keep talking about an annulment, like it was an option when both Ron and Neville knew  _ straight away _ that it wasn't. How much of an idiot am I?

He looks up and glares at me from his seat. 'So. Go on, then.’

'How do you feel about me?’ I ask, pushing my original intentions back, away from the dangerous grey eyes in front of me. I want to know  _ now  _ if I’m right about his motivations. And I want to know if he’ll tell the truth or just lie again.

'I feel like it's not going to matter soon, or is this somehow  _ not _ the  _ “it’s been great but let's just be friends” _ conversation?’

'It fucking matters, okay?’ Jesus Christ, he’s dramatic. 'I have no idea what's going on and I'm sick of feeling like I'm on the back foot with you.’

'I can't help it if you're confused by simple things.’ 

'This was  _ simple _ two weeks ago. It's a fucking mess now.’

‘I disagree,’ he waves his hand airily. ‘We live together, we sleep together, we don't have to worry about anything else.’

'WE’RE FUCKING MARRIED!’

'Not  _ properly. _ It only needs to be for a year, Harry, I've  _ told _ you.’

‘You’ve fucking  _ lied _ is what you’ve done. Don’t look at me like that, all innocent and  _ how dare I _ suggest you’re not fucking perfect. You  _ knew. _ Millicent told me you  _ wanted _ to get married.’

‘She did  _ what? _ Fuck Millicent. I—’ He takes a breath. ‘I didn’t want it to happen like this.’

‘But you did want it to happen? What, if taking me out drinking didn’t work were you going to drug me?’ My temper swirls in my chest. ‘Slip me an illegal love potion? Is it worth that? For what? To improve your family’s name?  _ The Malfoys can’t be that bad if Harry Potter is willing to marry one?' _

‘What the fuck are you saying?’ He looks at me like I’m crazy and I almost feel like I am. My heart is pounding in my ears and I think I’m shaking. For all my suspicions he’d planned this, I still wasn’t expecting him to confirm it so  _ casually. _ Like it wasn’t a big deal. 

‘You’re fucking using me,’ I breathe, my lungs aching.

‘We were using  _ each other. _ For  _ sex. _ Not for… fuck my family, Potter. My mother and I went through hell for years, nothing you do can fix that. I don’t give a shit what people think of us.’

‘So, what was it then, you’re in love with me after a week of looking after a fake baby together?’

‘No. Of course not, I’m not insane. And what’s love got to do with any of this?’

‘We’re. Fucking. Married.’

‘Not. Really.’

‘WE ARE WIZARD MARRIED.’ I feel bad for yelling, but  _ seriously. _ ‘The rings we can’t take off, the glowy lights when we were in bed that night, the hundred million people who shook our hands. The fact that you’ve had “forever” engraved in  _ this ring,' _ I hold it out, in his face, daring me to ask when I figured  _ that _ out. ‘It’s real. You made it happen, and we— we made it real because of how we felt, and we can’t undo it because as far as the laws of magic are concerned, we weren’t fucking around.’

‘So you feel the same as me?’ He sounds calm, hollow.

‘I don’t know. How can I? You wouldn’t even tell me if you’re still expected to marry a girl, you keep talking about annulment and divorce like none of this is a big deal. I don’t know how you feel.’

‘You just accused me of being in love with you. And then you said we were properly married because of how  _ we _ feel. It seems a lot like you’re saying you love me.’

‘Sure, fine. I love you. There you go.’ I want to throttle him. ‘When Millicent asks, do tell her I told you.’

‘Why do you seem  _ pissed off _ about it?’ 

‘Because you came into this with an out clause and a history of hating me,’ I point out. ‘And then you make me partner you in the worlds stupidest assignment, and suddenly we’re living together, and sleeping together and then you trick me into marrying you.’ 

‘You hated me too,’ he says, and stands up, taking a step toward me. ‘And the out clause was for both of us. And I didn’t  _ make you _ partner me, or live with me, or sleep with me. I just  _ offered. _ And I didn’t trick you into anything. You made your own decision, so I don’t know why you’re trying to make this all my fault simply because my friend suggested that maybe I’ve liked you for a little bit longer than three weeks.’

What? I feel my temper break, dissolve, and all I can do is stand there, dumb, while he stares at the floor.

‘If you liked me, why would you suggest just fucking around?’ I ask, my voice pathetic and wobbly and damning evidence of my weakness for him. ‘Why give it an end date? Why not something  _ real? _ Can you imagine telling our children we got together when we started casually having it off due to the convenient proximity of each other’s dicks?’

‘Since when are we having children?’ 

‘We  _ aren’t. _ I can’t even tell if we’re breaking up or not.’

‘Do you want to be?’ he asks, bringing his eyes up to mine, boring holes into me.

‘I don’t know,’ I say because I can’t think, it’s too much information and my heart is fluttering for too many different reasons and I just  _ need a minute. _

‘Well, fuck you, Harry,’ he says and he sounds sad and annoyed. ‘Let me know when you figure it out.’

He leaves without the expected fanfare. No stomping, no shoulder checking me, no slamming door. Not a thing that would help me hold on to my residual anger and ignore the telltale shine in his eyes.

I sit in the nearest chair and fall, boneless, back onto the velvet cushions. 

FUCK.


	14. Where The Wild Things Are (Sleeping)

**_Snape’s Rooms_ **

**_Morning_ **

**_Day 20_ **

I sit there for ages, mulling over everything we said, until I realise I’ve been a complete idiot for a very long time. It’s probably the second most idiotic thing I’ve done. Ron still has scars from the first, and Sirius is still dead. 

Millicent is partly to blame as well, because she never assumed I’d be dumb enough to process her words that far wrong. I wonder if Draco is yelling at her right now. I wonder how long it would’ve taken for us to talk about anything without her prompting. I wonder how my life got so full of Slytherins. I wonder what I can possibly do to redeem myself from such idiocy?

I look around for something to distract me, and my eyes fall on a very dusty bookshelf. All leather bound tomes of great importance by the looks of it. Dry. Not particularly distracting but maybe confusion will overrule heartbreak. I turn my head to read the spines.  _ Buller’s Birds, Eye of Newton: Magic vs. Science, Least Potent Potions: A Parody, Hogwarts: An Alternative History…  _ That seems mildly interesting and hopefully less boring than all the shit Hermione likes to tell us. I pull it from the shelf and brush a thick layer of dust from the purple leather. Ugh.

I open up on a random page and recoil instinctively before I realise I’m looking at an explanation of toileting procedures in the eighteenth century, and not some sort of secret scat play photo spread that Snape’s wanked over. What the actual fuck were these people on? I wonder if alternative history means ‘fake history’ or if they were all mental.

I flick through, see sections on sports days, dress-up parties, staff scandals and animal infestations. Apparently there was a whole year in the early 1960s where the castle was overrun with kittens because someone broke the ancient contraceptive wards and no one alive knew how to fix them. They had countless cases of Salmonella, Cat Scratch Fever and a handful of students got  _ rabies. _ There are grisly pictures of a rabid kitten tearing up a blanket, and a Hufflepuff girl having a seizure, an elderly matron cushioning her head from the hard stone floor and shooting occasional eye-daggers at the photographer. 

_Eventually,_ I read, _the brand new Transfiguration teacher,_ _Professor Minerva McGonagall —_ holy shit _—_ _had designed a new set of wards using her experiences while working for the Ministry to ensure a sturdy and effective replacement for the previous enchantments. They were anchored to a more stalwart part of the castle, since she believed the falling of the previous wards was due to having been whimsically anchored to the ornamental rose garden in the summer courtyard which had been destroyed in a spirited game of Thestral polo. She told no one what the new anchor was, since she was convinced that mischievous students would attempt to meddle with it._

One, we have  _ contraceptive wards? _ Two, McGonagall’s mention definitely gives the truth of the book some credence. Three, that matron looks like a very angry Oprah Winfrey and rightly so, because who photographs someone’s seizure? Harsh.

I keep flicking, find a bent playing card on the page that talks about the admittance of creatures into Hogwarts, but there’s no mention of any werewolves, just a couple part-Veelas and a vampire that used to teach astronomy in the 1850s. I check the front of the book and it was published in 1970, just a month before the war began. Lupin would’ve only been ten.

I’m immersed in the weird offerings of the book for a while, and Draco is all but forgotten, an unnamed dark spot in the back of my mind. Eventually, though, something catches my eye and it all comes flooding back. The bliss, the confusion, the argument, the realization that I’m the world’s biggest dickhead and don’t deserve a boyfriend. I read the article that’s caught my eye, it’s not long. I read it again, just to be sure.  _ Shit.  _ There’s a table of statistics and a small map as well — an enlargement of a section of the floor plan of Hogwarts. It looks familiar. I pore over it for a few moments before it clicks, maybe, what I’m looking at.

‘No,’ I say into the empty room, and I want to follow it with  _ “surely not” _ or  _ “it can’t be”, _ like I’m the protagonist in a BBC version of some detective novel, but I feel too self-conscious, and isn’t that a bit too close to all this shit that’s gone down with me being a stupid arse and not noticing Draco actually liked me because it felt too arrogant to consider it a possibility. It annoys me enough I make myself say it. ‘Surely not.’ The world doesn’t end. In fact, it might be beginning properly.

I move the bent playing card, the eight of clubs, to mark this page and snap the book shut. I need to find Hermione, and make sure what I’ve read is true.

*

I can’t find her anywhere, and isn’t that just typical? I could send her a Patronus, but she’ll worry someone’s dying, and an owl might work but the owlery is ages away and it’s pissing rain. Maybe as soon as I stop looking she’ll turn up. I grab some homework and decide to sit in the Great Hall and wait for morning tea, and hope the lure of scones brings me Hermione. The woman has to eat. I don’t see Draco anywhere either, not in the common room, not in our bedroom, not in the loo. They haven’t taken the little purple cot away yet and I feel a pang of loss, straight in the gut, when I spot it pushed off to the side, empty, two rolled up t-shirts still sitting inside it.

Van Mill really sucks for doing things the way she did. Meggan was a huge part of our lives for a short time and I— I kind of miss her. I don’t want her back, I get that she isn’t a real child, but Draco was right, she had a personality. Or appeared to have enough of one that we both saw it and grew attached to it. She brought us together, and made Draco show a side of himself I’d never seen before. Whimsical, caring. Not an arsehole. 

I reckon she should’ve let us say goodbye at least. 

I reckon she might’ve, if one of us had been a girl. 

It’s not worth thinking about, that or the weird look she gave us when we held hands. I don’t have the patience for anything like that right now. 

With nothing to distract me, no Meggan and no Draco, I churn through a decent amount of my Potions essay before I get stuck and have to put it off ‘til I can take a proper look at Draco’s notes. His  _ Herbarium Compendium  _ is coming in really handy this year, and I don’t know why they don’t make it an actual textbook. Neville and Hermione both have it as well and people are constantly borrowing it. Not that Slugface would notice or care.

I make an outline for my Charms report, and my shitty snail-paced progress that’s only been turned around by my darling husband. The “things I found challenging” section is going to be a big one, though I’ll have to remember that keeping my hands to myself isn’t the sort of challenge Flitwick wants to know about. He wants to hear about how I’ve made it rain. Hey, look, Professor, I wanted to send an owl and here it is raining, give me a gold star. What I really need is a hug and someone to tell me I’m not a total wally. Which is about when Neville and Hannah walk in. They’re not even holding hands but the vibe is clear, and I wonder if this is what people see when me and Draco are together. Shame none of them thought to tell me.

Of course, as I look at Neville, I remember the things he _did_ think to tell me. Like how you can't successfully marry someone if you don't genuinely love them. Then I remember how Millicent's words somehow made me forget that, and how I made a giant arse of myself for accusing Malfoy of using me for political gain and I feel my optimism shrivel. It must show on my face because Neville, bless him, looks concerned when he reaches the table. 

‘Hiya Harry,’ he says. ‘You ‘right?’

‘Hi Harry,’ Hannah adds, and steps in close to Neville’s side.

‘Yeah, just doing homework,' I say, trying to resurrect a normal facial expression. 'Have you seen Hermione anywhere?’

‘Not since yesterday. Are you worried? Is she okay?’

‘Yeah, of course. I just needed to ask her something. Though actually,’ I wave a hand at the bench opposite, hoping they’ll sit down. ‘What do you know about  Apocynum venetum? Is that the one used for hypertension or am I getting it confused with the other type of dogbane that’s used for expelling parasitic worms? The one that sounds like weed... Apocynum cannabis or something?’

‘Vermifuge,’ Hannah says, and Neville smiles proudly at her.

‘What?’

‘Apocynum venetum is the hypertension one, yeah. Cannabinum is really dangerous, you definitely don’t want to be taking that if you’re already having a bad time.’

‘Excellent, thanks.’ I whisk my abandoned essay out from under the pile of Charms notes and write the name in. More people are arriving, so I won’t have the chance to finish it, which is fine because it also means morning tea is closer and hopefully so is Hermione. Even more hopeful, a solution might be a little closer. And making up with Draco. A thrill skims over my skin when I picture what that might be like — what it might involve.

The bubble of hope that appears in my chest is all too telling. I need to make up with him. And somehow make it up  _ to _ him. The reality of never getting to be with him again is too horrible to consider. I’d fucking miss him. I almost miss him already and it’s only been a few hours. 

I think, even if my stupid theory had been right and he had tricked me into marrying him for the benefit to his name, I would’ve struggled to hold it against him when it came down to it. Would I have given him up? Maybe my innate clinginess would’ve overruled my self-respect. Maybe I’d have kept him no matter what. Maybe he’s going to make me suffer for it still and we’ll all get to see just how deep my stubbornness goes. 

Hannah and Neville chatter amongst themselves for a bit, something about cider apples and sugar content and fermentation points. I don’t follow along, half my mind is going over things I might say to Draco, things I might have to do. Whether or not a giant public declaration will be beneficial or another nail in my coffin.  _ ‘Hello, Hogwarts. I’m Harry Potter and I love my husband,’ _ or a blazing rendition of  _ Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You _ à la Heath Ledger. Maybe a boombox under our window, like John Cusack. A singing Valentine like my ex-girlfriend... who seems to be approaching with intent to sit with us. 

‘What’s up with you?’ she says, seeing my face. I wonder what it’s telling her. That I’m dreadfully besotted and on the cusp of singing my heart out?

That I’m horrified she’s sitting with me, or maybe just that I’m hungry for a scone?

‘Nothing unusual. Just waiting for food,’ I say. ‘How’re you, after, you know?’

‘Fine. Relieved, really. Tired. Bored of school. Sick of scones but too hungry to refuse them. Merlin, I miss mum’s cooking. What’s so wrong with muffins? Banana loaf? Even Hagrid’s rock cakes would break up the monotony.’ She sighs as she sits down.

‘They’d also break your teeth, though,’ I point out.

‘A small price to pay.’

‘You say that now, but you’d miss your teeth the next time someone made decent nachos.’

‘You know me too well,’ she gives me a wry smile, and can’t help but return it. 

‘Same here.’

‘You poorly kept secret is safe with me, Harry,’ she snorts. ‘Don’t you worry.’

I reckon she’s right, actually. She did, absolutely, dump me, but I can see why she did. She’s been okay about it, you know, considering she took up with Zabini immediately. She’s not blabbed to anyone about why, I don’t think. No one has been asking odd questions. Though they have been assuming Draco and I got married on purpose…

‘And yet, as you said yourself, everyone assumes anyway.’

‘It was mostly theoretical until your little game the other night,’ she smiles into her glass of juice. ‘Word of that travelled fast around the seventh year dorms.’

‘What?’ Shit.

‘Harry,’ she sighs. ‘What Blaise knows about Draco is part of it, but when you do  _ you _ the way that you always do, and jump into things head first while everyone is watching… people see exactly what’s going on.’

‘Oh,’ is all I can think of to say. I kinda thought that would stay within the small circle of eighth years. Except, of course, Ginny’s friend was also there. Also saw. ‘Your friend, the Welsh one.’

‘Cari?  _ Former _ friend, as you can imagine. Gossipy slag,’ she scowls. ‘I’d offer to punch her for you but I still have to share a dorm with her for another few months, so, sorry.’

‘Bollocks.’

‘Is it a problem, really?’ she sighs. ‘No one cares, Harry. You’re  _ you, _ you can do what you want. Even if it’s an ex-Death Eater.’

‘Ex-Death Eater? Is that really how you think of him?’

‘Not me, he was shit at it.’ She shrugs. ‘I’m pretty sure he’s still scared of me from last year.’

‘At least we know he’s not stupid.’ I, especially, know he’s not stupid. I am. Me. I am the stupid one.

‘Not nearly as dumb as Blaise. Lord knows what’s  _ he’s _ going to do with the information you’re moving in on his ex.’

‘Moving?’

‘Moved?’ She raises an eyebrow. ‘I don’t know Harry, you tell me.’

I hesitate. ‘Isn’t that a bit weird? To talk to you about it?’

‘I’d rather hear it from you than Cari.’

‘Bit rich, considering how I found out about you and Blaise.’

She sighs, nods a begrudging agreement. ‘Let’s agree to be better from now on, then, yeah?’

I’m tossing up whether or not I owe her anything, whether I should tell her just how much Draco and I have “moved in” on each other, when we’re both distracted by Hermione and Ron, who appear almost as one, Hermione settling close on the other side of me just as morning tea appears on the tables in front of us. But the time I look around her to greet Ron, he’s got a scone in each hand and a full mouth. 

I lean slightly toward Hermione, wondering if I can keep my questions relatively private. 

‘Hermione,’ I whisper while everyone’s distracted by food. ‘You’ve read Hogwarts, A History…’ 

She looks at me like I’m certifiably mental. ‘Once or twice. Why? Are you finally interested in where you live?’

‘Sort of. I found another book, kind of like an alternative to Bagshot’s. I read something and I want to know if it’s actually true.’

‘Okay. You know I haven’t memorised the whole thing, right?’

‘I feel like this little nugget might have stood out,’ I say and slide Snape’s book off my lap under the table and onto hers. ‘I marked the page.’

She flicks the book open and scans it, her mouth giving away the exact moment when she finds the small article. She reads it in silence before turning to me. ‘Harry. What are you planning to do with this?’

‘Is it true?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know, maybe. It’s not really something I would’ve deemed useful to remember. What are you going to do?’

I’ve barely have time to explain what I need to, before three things happen at once. Draco sits down between me and Ginny in an annoyed flurry of black fabric, Ron spills his entire cup of tea on top of his third scone, and the double doors of the Great Hall swing open to admit a very agitated Professor Minerva McGonagall, maker of contraceptive wards and general all-round force to be reckoned with, even at seventy-odd. She’s heading straight for us.

I feel like we might be in trouble. 

‘I just had a very interesting discussion with Mr Zabini,’ is all she says once she is standing over us, and then she glares and names each of us in turn, just so everyone is super clear on who’s being told off. Me and Draco, Hermione and Ron, Millicent and Parvati. ‘You have twenty minutes to eat something and then we are going to have a very serious discussion in my office.’ 

No one says anything as she continues on to the head table, all I can hear is the steady drip of tea onto the floor. 

Fuck.

She found out. Zabini fucking  _ told on us.  _ What a _ dick.  _ I look over and Ginny has her head in her hands. Regret’s a bitch, I guess. 

‘I’m going to the library,’ Hermione announces, slipping Snape’s book in her bag and standing up. ‘Meet you at the Headmistress' office.’

‘What for?’ Ron frowns, temporarily distracted from his soggy scone.

‘I expect you’ll see shortly,’ she says and rushes off out the door.

‘What’s she doing?’ he asks me and I have to shrug because the alternative is explaining and that can’t happen here.

‘I hope you’re not breaking them up, too, Potter,’ Draco mutters from my other side and I turn to him, reading his expression as more hurt that annoyed.

‘I don’t want to break anyone up,’ I say, quiet so no one else hears, and he stops frowning quite so much. 

‘Good to know,’ he says, and reaches for the nearest teapot. ‘I’d hate to be getting in trouble for nothing.’

‘I’m sorry. About before,’ I whisper. ‘I realise I was being a dick and I should’ve just talked to you instead of assuming the worst.’

‘Agreed.’

‘To be fair, assuming the worst has been fairly accurate in my life so far.’

‘Whereas my endless optimism has been consistently rewarded.’

‘You can be optimistic about me,’ I say, looking him in the eye, feeling how true it is as it sinks in what I’m saying. ‘From now on. Promise.’

‘We’ll see,’ he says and I feel my face fall. He rolls his eyes and smiles the tiniest bit. 

He doesn’t say anything else but I feel the back of his hand brush against my thigh. When I close my fingers over his, hidden beneath the table, he just licks the rim of his tea cup and laces our fingers together.

We’re okay. But that’s not enough and there’s still a chance I can make it up to him. And at the moment that’s resting on Hermione.

*

We make a sorry little group walking up to McGonagall’s office. Hermione isn’t there when we arrive and we spend a moment debating whether it’s worse to go in without her or risk all being late together. Millicent decides for us by walking through the arch onto the revolving stairs, setting them in motion with the gentle grind of stone on stone. Parvati follows her, Ron looks anxious and waves us ahead of him. Draco turns to give me a sad little smile before he passes through and my feet move after him without consulting my head. Ron huffs a relieved  _ “Finally” _ just moments later as he falls out of sight around the curve of the staircase, and I hear Hermione’s hissed whisper a second later, comforting and familiar, but too late for me to ask her what she’s found out, because it’s a bloody short trip up when you need it not to be and I’m almost standing in the doorway of McGonagall’s office already.

‘What took you so long?’ I hear Ron ask her. ‘Where were you?’

‘I told you,  _ library.' _

‘I assumed that was a cover. What were you doing in the library?’

‘No time,’ she hisses. ‘Later.’

The Headmistress’s office is cool and shining and there’s not a soft surface anywhere to be seen. She’s there already, sitting behind her desk and looking most displeased. I doubt it’s going to get better. Even if Parvati and Mill were technically not doing anything wrong, and even if I’m right about me and Draco, Ron and Hermione are still very much in breach of the rules. Stupid as the rules are, considering they’re probably in place to prevent kids from fucking and we’re no longer kids and quite capable of fucking wherever we like despite them. Surely it’s better to be behind closed doors in a castle with contraceptive wards than out in the greenhouses where an industrious eleven-year-old could see, and more future eleven-year-olds might accidentally be created.

There’s only two nasty-looking wooden chairs in front of McGonagall’s desk so none of us sit down. I wonder if it’s even remotely intimidating, being faced with six of us. She’s seen us at our lowest, probably. Seen us as children, definitely. At our weakest and strongest. But what are we now? Post-war child soldiers. Slightly broken, tarnished. Seems bizarre to punish us for a loss of innocence if you look at it that way. 

She stands up to face us, hands clasped in front of her. ‘It’s come to my attention that the six of you have taken it upon yourselves to make unofficial changes the rooming arrangements that were made for you upon your acceptance of a place back at Hogwarts.’

It’s not a question, so I don’t say anything. No one does. Hermione, even, keeps her mouth shut. Draco’s knuckles graze against mine at my side. 

‘Part of your acceptance of a place in the eighth year program is an acceptance of the rules that this school has upheld for many hundreds of years. The rules, and the way of life in this castle is a part of who we are, who we become. Your parents aren’t here to enforce the high standard of behaviour I expect from a Hogwarts student, and I rather expect they’d be ashamed if they were.’

I’m tempted to comment that mine are very dead and would probably tell me to live my life while I can. That Draco’s dad was an evil dick and anything he might have disapproved of was probably a good thing. That Hermione’s parents still barely remember her existing and likely wouldn’t bat an eyelid. That even Ron’s parents were surprisingly lenient over the summer, with the harsh perspective war gives making once-imperative rules seem trivial. I hold my tongue though, because I might have a better argument, and if so, this isn’t the time for it. Of course I have no idea what Hermione found out yet, so maybe I don’t. She won’t even look over at me.

‘The matter of what to do about you all remains to be determined, since this has never been a problem before,’ she pauses. 

I know McGonagall can’t possibly think that all Hogwarts students graduate without ever having tested her contraceptive wards, so I can only assume she’s referring to the room swapping itself and not the assumed sex. Which is good, because I don’t want to have to admit we’re having it in order to get told off for it.

‘Since the founding of Hogwarts,’ she continues, ‘young witches and wizards have been housed in  _ separate dormitories, _ always with certain precautionary systems in place to discourage  _ nighttime visitations.' _

Okay, maybe she’s pissed off about both. 

‘This is the first year we’ve had only two students to a room, and the first time any year group has been placed together, away from the rest of their houses. This is also the first time I’ve had to come up with a suitable punishment for six students who are all of age and who should all know better. Six students who had no small part in ending the war and yet still haven’t learned to keep it in their trousers.’ She looks annoyed. Not disappointed. Small mercies. Possibly the only one, if my theory is rubbish.  _ Look at me, Hermione! _

‘Headmistress,’ Millicent says, her voice carefully neutral. ‘Parvati and I are both girls, so we actually didn’t break any rules,’ she points out.

McGonagall turns to the two of them. ‘Yet Mr Zabini informs me he found you in his room this morning in a position most compromising. That sort of conduct is half the reason we have never offered twin rooms previously.’

‘A misunderstanding,’ Mill states. ‘I had found a lump and asked my most trusted friend, Parvati, to have a look for me, since it was in an awkward place.’

‘Did you, now?’

‘Yes, Headmistress. It turned out to be an ingrown hair.’

McGonagall’s lip twitches and she sighs. ‘Perhaps next time Madam Pomfrey might be able to assist you?’

‘I saw her just before morning tea. She’s given me a loofah, Headmistress, and suggested that in the future I don’t bow to any societal gender norms by maintaining unrealistic beauty ideals when it comes to body hair.’

‘Sensible advice.’

‘I absolutely agree, Ma’am.’

I look left down the line of us. Parvati, on the opposite end, looks uncomfortable, perhaps that her normally discreet sex life is being put under a microscope. Mill, next to her, looks calm and vaguely defiant. Ron looks a bit sheepish, but Hermione is… trying not to smile. 

_ Wait. _

That can only be a good thing. She finally sees me looking and raises 

an eyebrow, losing her battle at the same time, one corner of her mouth lifting into a smug grin. Ron notices and frowns, more than he was a second ago.

‘Might I ask, Miss Granger, what you think you have to smile about?’ McGonagall asks, clearly also having noticed.

‘You may, Headmistress, but first, I need to ask Ron something,’ Hermione says, and she turns, takes his hands and tugs him to face her. 

I feel a surge of hope. If Hermione’s about to do what I think she’s about to do, everything I suspected must check out, and this might actually work. I don’t know how she managed it in twenty minutes, but I don’t doubt her findings.

I can only see the back of Ron’s head now, but I imagine he looks about as confused as Parvati does. Draco turns his head to give me a questioning look. It says, very plainly,  _ “Has Granger gone mental?” _ I just take his hand and nod toward my two very best friends. I don’t want to miss this.   
  


Because there’s something Hermione and I know, but there’s also something I know about  _ Ron _ that Hermione  _ doesn’t. _ Ever since he came back that day in the forest, he’s been determined to never, ever, leave her again. And while he’s not wanted to scare her by asking too soon, he’s been carrying around his Great Aunt Muriel’s fourth-best engagement ring all this year just in case the opportunity presented itself. And while she might think the opportunity is  _ hers _ right now, I know that that’s about to change, and that it’s about to become  _ theirs. _ And when their future children ask me about this moment I’m going to look back on myself thinking about them asking me and it’s going to be weird and awesome and I’ll wish I had a camera.

‘Ron, you know I love you,’ she says, and even though this is terribly unromantic, and we’re in the middle of getting told off, I see her face crumple slightly, hear her voice wobble a little. ‘And I know we haven’t talked about this yet, but…’ She looks up into his eyes, which I imagine are wide and panicked. ‘Will you do me the honour of becoming my husband?’ She looks confident, but she still adds, ‘It’s very important that you say yes’.

Ron takes his hands out of hers, reaches into his pockets and pulls out a crumpled packet of Drooble’s Extra Minty Gum and his wand.  _ ‘Finite Incantatem,’ _ he says and the little green and yellow packet morphs into a purple velvet bag. Hermione, probably on the cusp of wondering if she was about to be rejected, gasps audibly in the otherwise-silent room. 

‘Ron?’ she asks as he loosens the strings and upends the tiny bag in his palm.

He picks up the thin gold band between his thumb and forefinger, a fat opal perched on top and surrounded by tiny pink stones, and holds it out to her. ‘Yes,’ he says. 

Draco’s fingers tighten around my own.

There’s a restrained flurry of activity: the ring goes on, they kiss, Parvati squeaks and Mill swears softly. McGonagall clears her throat.

‘Are you quite done, Miss Granger? Mr Weasley?’

‘Yes, actually, Headmistress, we are. You were asking what I had to smile about.’

‘I was. I didn’t intend for you to demonstrate.’

‘Well, actually, that was rather important, and not just because, you know, it’s important. Um. Harry, could you?’

‘Oh.’ Shit. I should’ve probably been preparing for this instead of gazing all heart-eyed at my friends. Fuck. Okay. ‘Headmistress McGonagall, we actually don’t think we should be punished.’

‘I would expect not.’

‘Not because we think that Hogwarts school rules are rubbish or anything, er, quite the opposite really. And we understand that the slightly, er, secretive way we went about this is… regrettable, but… the rules are actually in our favour?’ I shoot a look at Hermione and she nods enthusiastically. ‘Draco and I, as a married couple, are, in fact, entitled to our own room in the castle.’ I feel him startle beside me, his hand slack in mine, just for a second.

‘As are Ron and I, as an officially engaged couple. As witnessed by yourself, Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and as such, an Upstanding Member of British Wizarding Society.’

‘Mr Potter, Miss Granger, before you two descended on this school, there hasn’t been a student marriage, or engagement, at Hogwarts since syphilis was an issue in the 1700s. Purebloods were marrying off their children at fifteen while they were still alive and sane enough to consent to it. The  _ intent _ of that rule was to help prevent disease, not so that you all might play house with each other three hundred years in the future.’

‘So the intent of the rule was health and well-being?’ I say. ‘The same as the intent of Citizenship of Britain? Where we’re studying Family, Relationships and Reproduction? Is promoting and supporting healthy family relationships within the school not part of that?’ I ask. ‘It seems especially important for those of us who don’t have much family left after the war, if any at all.’

There’s a long, tense pause while McGonagall attempts to  _ Stupefy _ me with only her scowl. ‘You make an excellent point, Mr Potter,’ she says after a time.

‘Thank you, Headmistress.’

‘And I suppose you think the general populace of the school will simply accept this as an ordinary part of school life?’

Ron is the one to answer her. ‘They already have, Headmistress. They’ve been married for weeks and the only reason anyone’s gossiping about it is because they made such a good show of hating each other for seven years. Besides,’ he shrugs, and throws me a smile. ‘It’s Harry, no one expects ordinary.’

McGonagall sighs and sits down at her desk. ‘So you think that the best course of action is to carry on as you are?’

‘Yes,’ Ron says, and we all nod our assent. 

‘Also,’ I cut in, ‘the rooms that were held aside for such students in the past are actually exactly where you’ve housed the eighth years, anyway, so...’ I shrug, try not to look too pleased with myself. ‘All is well, really.’

‘Is it, indeed, Mr Potter?’ McGonagall says, and she turns to me, tired, by the looks of it, but not annoyed anymore, and maybe slightly sympathetic.

I look over at Draco and he's staring, open-mouthed, at me. Probably that I've actually done independent research, to be fair. But he looks happy, and he looks good, and my ring is still shining on his finger. So, 'Yes,' I say to McGonagall. 'It is.’ 


	15. Epilogue: Meg and Mog

**_Eighth Year Suite, The Malfoy-Potters’ Room_ **

**_Late Afternoon_ **

**_Day 27_ **

‘Harry, what is this?’

‘It’s a room-warming present.’

‘Why isn’t it wrapped properly? You can’t gift someone something in an old cardboard box.’

‘Draco,’ I say. ‘Open the damn thing.’

‘What is it?’ he asks.

‘It’s a present, I’m not telling you what it is, you have to open it.’

He steps closer to our new couch, sitting right where Ron’s bed used to be and looking very much like a bigger version of the conjured loveseat from a few weeks previous. He pokes the carton and it makes a sound.

‘Seriously, Potter, what is it?’

‘It’s Malfoy-Potter, thank you, and I’m still not telling.’

He glares a little and I smile and he gives up and turns back to the box. 

‘Will it hurt me?’ he asks.

‘I guess it might. Maybe initially by accident, but eventually…’ I think back to the last thing we took care of together and I can’t bring myself to lie to him. ‘Yeah. It’ll hurt. But hopefully not for about sixteen years or so.’

‘What have you done?’

‘Open the box.’

He does. Lifts the flaps one at a time and stands back, waiting. There’s a small scratching sound and a pathetic mewl.

He leans forward and peeks inside and I watch his face change. His dubious expression softens, his mouth opens slightly. He looks over at me, sat on our bed.

‘You bought me a kitten.’

‘I bought  _ us _ a kitten.’

‘Is it safe to pick it up?’

‘Of course. She’s twelve weeks old, she’s litter-trained, and she likes people. Scared of butterflies, though.’

Draco reaches into the box and pulls out a fluffy black explosion of fur and toes and panic. He pulls her close and bundles her against his chest and she clings to him, eyes wide. 

‘It’s my turn to choose the first name,’ he says.

‘Okay. I’ve been calling her Mog, though. If you like that.’

‘Oh,’ he looks over at me and I can see him melting from the inside. ‘After the cat in the book.’

‘Yeah.’

‘It’d be nice to have something to remember our first daughter by,’ he says. ‘I’m happy with Mog. But I’m going to choose the middle name.’

‘Agreed.’

And that’s how our cat ends up being called Mog Maleficent Malfoy-Potter. She sleeps on our bed, and she follows Crookshanks around, and she purrs every time we pick her up. She also wakes us up in the morning because she’s hungry and bored and sometimes we have to get up in the night because she’s tried to do something silly and gotten stuck somewhere. But she’s ours, and she’s real, and no one can take her away.

**Author's Note:**

> Monday 29 June 2020
> 
> I've very recently decided to rewrite this fic as an original YA novel. If you're interested in what that might look like, I'll be recruiting betas some time the next couple of weeks. Leave a comment if you want to get involved :)


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